Virtues From A Certain Point of View
by BunBun Fett
Summary: A series of loosely-linked vignettes, exploring the pre-and-post Order 66 lives of our favorite clones. Now up: Faith. In which Obi-Wan Kenobi realizes that faith is usually something that you share...
1. Truth

**The Knightly Virtues: **_**Truth**_

**In which Commander Fox shows Senator Amidala the truth of the man behind the clone.**

* * *

_"We hold these __**truths**_ _to be self-evident: that all sentients are created equal, that they are endowed with certain unalienable Rights, and that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."_

_**Preamble to the Rights of Sentience**_  
**Galactic Republic**

* * *

Padme was properly shocked by the display of blatant indiscretion. So shocked, in fact, that she couldn't look away, even though common decency demanded that she _should_. She stood in the shadows formed along the edge of the Senate hallway and simple _stared_.

Senator Theena Dur of the United Anobian Coalition was pressed quite firmly between the wall behind her desk and a equally solid body. Distinctive crimson markings along the armored legs and arms of said solid body, identified the man holding the young Zabrak captive, as a member of the Coruscant Guard.

As a _clone_.

He held his helmet in one hand, down against his thigh; his other hand was tangled firmly in the short black hair that curved against the senator's cheeks. _Her_ arms were wrapped around his neck and her slender fingers gripped the back of his head possessively. As their recklessly passionate embrace continued, one of the senator's hands flattened against his neck and slowly traced the curve of his close-shaven skull. She stroked his hair, just above his ears, and he growled deep in his throat.

Padme was too flummoxed by the scene unfolding before her, to do much more than gape in astonishment. Passion wasn't something she had ever seen in a clone before - most certainly not _sexual_ passion.

There was no denying the passion in their embrace, however foreign a concept it seemed to Padme. The heat of their kiss seemed to fill the whole hallway and the young senator could feel her cheeks flushing a bright red - though, whether from embarrassment or some other equally uncomfortable emotion, she couldn't tell.

The Zabrak senator's face moved from behind her arduous assailant and a pair of heavy-lidded purple eyes spotted Padme from over the soldier's shoulder. Those eyes fluttered shut for just a second, as the clone moved his own head down to nuzzle Theena's neck.

Padme twitched, as if to turn and walk as quickly as she could back the way she came, but she was riveted by those violet eyes as they made contact with her again.

"We've got company, Commander," Theena whispered softly into the guard's ear; her eyes never left Padme's face.

"Wouldn't be the first time we've given someone a show," his voice was much rougher than any Padme ever heard before from a clone.

She recognized the tightly stressed inflection and what it meant. Anakin often got a similar growl to his words when they were alone together. It was the tone of a man intent on one thing and one thing alone - pleasure and release. Padme felt words stammering on her lips, but she was unable to express her embarrassed amazement. Instead, she licked her lips and tried desperately to figure out to extricate herself diplomatically from the awkward situation.

"It's not one of your soldiers," the Zabrak gasped and arched her head back - Padme couldn't see from _what_, though she could well imagine what was going on between their tightly-pressed bodies.

The clone growled again, but this time, it was a noise of distinctive frustration. With considerable effort, he let go of the writhing female in his arms and straightened his shoulders back. He looked over his shoulder and his dark eyes searched the shadows for a moment, before spotting Padme.

"Senator," he nodded and turned slightly away from his lover to face Padme.

If Padme didn't know the heady rush of arousal for herself, she would have missed the slight breathlessness in his voice, or the irregular rhythm of his chest plates as they rose and fell in breaths he was trying to subdue. But, she _did_ know passion, only too well, and her knowledge suddenly disquieted her.

Desire had deepened the brown in his eyes to a rich umber and Padme's paralysis suddenly lifted as she reached a soft hand up to cover her gasp of surprise. Raw, carnal _energy_ battled with his precise military bearing and created a complex figure. The clone had managed to shutter his emotions behind a mask of calculated indifference, but Padme could see his eyes burning intensely in the mellow light cast by the senator's desk lamp.

She had learned, long ago, as a queen, to read the truth held in another's eyes. The truth she saw reflected in those russet depths was both unexpected and unsettling.

Padme frantically searched her mind for the clone's name. "Commander", Senator Dur had called him. There were only three clones in the Coruscant Guard who held that title and Padme knew Thire and Stone by sight. Her eyes flickered down toward the kama that fell heavy against the back of his knees and her eyes widened slightly in recognition.

"Commander Fox!" she couldn't help but gasp in surprise, as she looked back up at his face.

She'd never seen Fox's face before, but his kama made him unmistakable. He was clean-shaven - like most clones - but his regulation high-and-tight was dyed a dark auburn that set him apart from both Stone and Thire. His face was unmarred by scars and would have been unremarkable against a sea of a thousand similar faces, but he had a darkly lined tattoo that curved along the side of his neck and up along the line of his strong jaw, stopping just beneath his left ear.

Padme realized that she was staring, when she noticed Fox's right eyebrow arch slightly upward in a mild expression of annoyance. She felt her cheeks flush a bright red again - especially since she felt _she_ ought to be the one annoyed - and managed a stammer to break the awkward silence.

"I-I..um...what are you doing here?"

"Security detail," Fox explained in the succinct efficiency for which he was known.

Padme struggled to wrap her mind around what he was saying.

_Security detail_?

Fox must have noticed the confusion flutter across her face, because he made a noise in his throat that sounded suspiciously like a snort.

"My company has Senate duty this week – I've been patrolling the hallways all night with First and Second Squad," he paused and something like a smile threatened to pull up the edges of his mouth, until he remembered his professional expectations and pressed his lips into a thin line. "I believe you've caught me indulging in a brief detour from my duties."

"I think a better question would be, what are _you_ doing here so late at night, Senator Amidala?" Theena's voice was smooth, like the finest Endorian honey.

Her bewitching purple eyes appeared over Fox's shoulders as she casually slipped her hands around his waist and put her chin gently in the groove between the commander's neck and his armor. Padme was - yet again - momentarily flabbergasted by the casual display of familiarity. The commander merely shifted his arm slightly, to allow her chin more resting room against his black body-suit; he did nothing to dissuade the Zabrak's body from pressing against his back and that shocked Padme even more.

"I-I..." Padme stuttered to a stop and took a deep breath.

_Pull yourself together, Padme. You were a queen once - act like it._

The Nabooian senator seemed to have regained some of her composure at that thought and she clasped her hands politely in front of her as she stepped resolutely out of the shadows. Emboldened by her move into the light, she matched the clone commander's stern gaze with one of her own.

"I came down here to extend a formal invitation, Senator Dur. It would be an honor if you would attend a dinner that Senator Organa and I are organizing for the end of this week's sessions," Padme's eyes flickered briefly toward Fox, before she focused again on the female behind him.

The former queen bowed slightly at the waist and lowered her eyes as was customary when showing respect. For a moment, both Fox and his lover remained impassive, but then the Zabrak let go of the clone commander and stepped away from him.

"I would be delighted," Theena mimicked Padme's formal bow, though hers was a lot less poised and polished.

"You're here in the Senate at this hour unaccompanied?" Fox broke through the senatorial formalities, as his dark eyes swept past Padme to consider the hallway in the direction she would have come from.

"Yes. Well...no..." Padme smoothed an invisible wrinkle in the front of her dark green skirt and tried not to blush like a truant school-girl. "Captain Typho is just down the hallway, at the foot of the stairs. I-I thought it might be best if I met Senator Dur woman-to-woman," Padme inclined her head gently toward the tall, broad-shouldered female Zabrak. "I didn't realize that I'd find -" she suddenly stopped and bit her tongue before she could say something distinctly undiplomatic.

She glanced at Fox and this time, she couldn't help the blush. His eyes narrowed and Padme lowered her gaze abruptly.

"I didn't expect to find you," she amended, her eyes firmly fixed on Fox's armored elbow.

She fiddled with her fingers, twisting them about each other, as she thought briefly of the other clones she'd come to know - Stone, Thire, Cody, Rex. Padme couldn't imagine ever catching any of them kissing a female in public. Their behaviors and personalities as soldiers were far too set for such "civilian silliness", as she'd once heard Thire call it.

"In the line of your duties, though, Commander, this isn't very professional," Padme lifted her eyes again and quietly rebuked him.

Something subtle changed in the clone's demeanor. Moments before, he was coolly professional, with a hint of a swagger and defiance. His casual sensuality disappeared almost immediately, though, as he drew his shoulder back in an almost imperceptible display of anger. Startled, Padme looked up to search his eyes; the look he shot her was one of unequivocal disdain, before he slammed his helmet back into place.

His words echoed the truth she'd seen in his eyes.

"Perhaps if more of my brothers behaved _unprofessionally_, Senator, the galaxy would see us for what we _really_ are."

"Wait! I -" Padme started, but Fox didn't give her any time to explain herself.

He turned abruptly on his heel and lingered just long enough to reach up and brush the side of Theena's with the back of his hand face, before stalking off toward Captain Typho and the second-story Senate stairs beyond. Dismayed - and slightly puzzled by the abrupt change of attitude - Padme watched as the commander's stiffly straightened back disappeared around the corridor corner.

"I'm afraid you touched something that's been a bit of a sore spot for him lately," Theena's hand startled Padme.

She turned at the Zabrak's touch and was surprised to see compassion in her fellow senator's lightly tattooed face. Theena titled her head to the side and the two females considered each other for a long moment.

"I didn't mean to upset him," Padme blurted out the words, but she meant them as honestly as she could.

"I know," Theena patted the senator's shoulder gently. "And when he's cooled down, he'll know that, too. But, I'm afraid that under that military professionalism, he hides many strong passions."

Mention of Commander Fox's "passions" made Padme feel vaguely uncomfortable. She glanced at Theena and then down the hallway, in the direction of Fox's abrupt departure.

_Well, I've made a mess of things_, she thought begrudgingly.

It hadn't been her intention to patronize Fox or to anger him. But, seeing him pressed so ardently against a _senator_ had thrown Padme slightly off-balance. It was hard to remain professional herself, when the image of their kiss kept replaying in the vivid forefront of her mind.

"Tell me, Senator Amidala," Theena's husky voice broke through Padme's thoughts.

"Yes?" brown eyes met purple in a solemnly earnest moment.

"If you had offended a man, what would you do to set things right?"

"I would -" Padme stopped, when the gentle truth of what Theena was saying hit her.

The senator bowed her head for a moment and closed her eyes.

_Commander Fox might be a clone, but he's still a man. Just like any other_. _Just like Ani._

She lifted her head, after a moment, and met the Zabrak's calm, impartial gaze.

"I would apologize to him."

* * *

"Please, Commander, sit," Padme waved a neatly manicured hand toward one of the comfortable, curve-backed chairs in her spacious senatorial office.

Fox stood in front of her, his back as stiff as it had been when he'd stalked off down the Senate hallway the night before. His face was almost as impassive as hewn stone, but a slight tic at the corner of his jaw, just underneath his ear, belied his feelings. For just half a second, he hesitated, but then he sat down on the edge of one of the chairs Padme offered him. He sat just as stiffly as he had stood, and placed his helmet on his knees with almost excruciating precision.

Padme stifled a sigh and figured that under the circumstances, the fact that he sat down at all was a positive sign. She arranged herself gracefully on the chair across from him and then picked up a small, blue-and-white porcelain pot.

"Would you like some caf?"

"No thank you, ma'am. I don't touch the stuff."

"Oh," Padme blinked and stared in mild confusion at the pot in her hand. "I thought -" she immediately bit her tongue and nearly groaned in frustration.

_There I go again._

This time, though, Fox seemed more inclined to bite back with his own brand of wry humor.

"Just because the boys on the front line practically need a direct IV of caf to think straight, doesn't mean that _all_ of us have developed a taste for it," Fox didn't smile, but an eyebrow arched and gave Padme hope that maybe she hadn't completely destroyed her feeble attempts at an apology. "I prefer a shot of _tihaar_ to get things started."

"_Tihaar_?" Padme frowned slightly as she placed the caf pot back down on the tiny table between their knees.

This time, it was her turn to arch an eyebrow, as she recalled Duchess Satine mentioning the same, once.

"You start your day with _liquor_?"

"Just a shot, to clear the head," his big shoulders rolled in a shrug. "Other than that, I drink water."

"Don't you think that taking shots of alcohol through your day is a little -"

_Oh, blast! There I go again_, Padme immediately clamped her mouth shut and suddenly wondered what it was about the red-headed clone that made her throw her skills of diplomacy out the window.

"Unprofessional?" Fox finished for her and Padme miserably met his eyes.

She was surprised to see a glint of humor reflected at her. His face remained impassive, however, his lips set in a thin line.

"If you're worried about the Commander of the Coruscant Guard being a closet alcoholic, allow me to set your mind at ease, Senator. It takes a lot more than a single shot of Mandalorian spirits in the morning, to get a clone drunk. Seems our progenitor had a high tolerance for such things."

Padme didn't know what to say to that - she'd never heard a clone mention Jango Fett, not even obliquely and certainly never in such casual passing. Thankfully, Fox didn't seem to expect her to say anything, since he continued talking, his tone smooth and deceptively even.

"As for 'unprofessional', I'll give you that. But, you'd be surprised, Senator, by how _unprofessional_ I really am. For example, I like being thoroughly indecent at every possible opportunity, most particularly with Senator Dur -"

Padme tried, unsuccessfully, not to blush; her ears burned at the rather raunchy implications of Fox's bold words.

"I like to listen to loud music when I'm bored - which happens quite a _lot_, might I add. I like to think that my internal commentary on you senatorial types is witty, if scathing. And I like to be 'unprofessional' whenever and wherever I please."

Once again, Padme was rendered speechless. She didn't even _know_ how to change the conversation back toward its original intention. Fox had smoothly taken over the discussion and turned it on its head; the young senator suddenly had a sneaking suspicion that this was something the clone commander had quite a lot of experience in.

In addition to making scathing commentary on the senators he was ordered to protect. And being "indecent" with a senator.

The two locked gazes for a long moment, before Padme decided that, since Fox was being so blunt, she'd be blunt in return. Being diplomatic didn't seem to hold her in much stead with the clone - no, with the _man_ - so she decided abruptly that maybe a different tactic was in store.

"I'm sorry for what I said last night," she offered her apology the best way she knew how. "I shouldn't have spoken down to you, or assumed things I shouldn't."

"And what did you 'assume', Senator?" Fox asked quietly.

His back was still as straight as ever and he hadn't leaned back once against the comfortable chair. He still held his helmet with precise exactness and his face was still a mask of measured indifference. But, his eyes told Padme a different story - they told her the truth of the man in front of her.

In many ways, Fox had learned much from the galactic senators in his care. He had turned the conversation inside out, had forced her to be blunt, had taken command of a situation that she had thought to control. And now, he asked her quiet questions, as if she was the fool to be pitied.

Padme had a startling reacquaintence with humility, beneath his calmly calculated gaze.

"I assumed, Commander, that you weren't a man who had every natural right to kiss a beautiful female," she admitted after a moment of utter silence.

"Do you believe in the Rights of Sentience, Senator?" Fox's voice was almost gentle.

Padme felt like a child again - it had been some time since she'd been so subtly forced to see the galaxy from another point of view. It was almost enough to make her hang her head in shame. She was willing to give a Separatist the benefit of a doubt...she was willing to fight for justice and peace...but she had never once stopped to consider the truth of the lives her Republic had engineered for war.

"Yes," she replied, just as gently. "I believe in the Rights of Sentience."

Fox finally gave some physical indication of his emotions on the matter. He slowly closed his eyes and lifted his chin up slightly, as if beseeching the heavens for the realization of a truth that evaded them all.

"Could you quote me the Preamble?"

"Of course," Padme was puzzled by the request, but she licked her lips, thought for a minute, and then recited words she'd known since her earliest childhood. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all sentients are created equal, that they are endowed with certain unalienable Rights, and that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."

And then, Fox asked her a question that Padme knew would haunt her soul until her dying day -

"Am I not sentient?"

* * *

Commander Fox left shortly after that, but the impact of his words lingered with Padme. His question echoed through her mind, as if set on some sadistic replay -

_"Am I not sentient?"_

She made it through the day as if in a fog - her mind preoccupied with her morning's conversation. And now, when she passed armored clones in the Senate halls, she caught herself wondering about the faces hidden beneath their helmets.

_"Am I not sentient?"_

She began to feel as if they were _all_ asking her that - every last clone, from Coruscant to Tattooine. Padme stood in her office and watched the sun set behind the glistening white towers of the Jedi Temple; she quietly came to terms with the truth of every clone's identity.

_They're men. Just men._

She pressed her hands against the glass and mourned silently for them.

She'd heard the whispered rumors - they'd all been engineered in clinical labs, "grown" in glass vats. They were men who'd never been "born", in the purest sense of the word. Not a single one of them knew the gentle warmth and loving embrace of a mother.

They'd been raised surrounded by military efficiency. Had they ever known anything else? She thought of every clone she'd met - of even Fox's instinctual precision - and doubted that they'd ever been given even the glimmer of a chance at something _ordinary_. They'd been shaped and formed into the perfect army - duplicate soldiers, perfected right down to the number of hairs on their heads. They hadn't been trained to express their individuality, or to develop personalities, or to think beyond their next order.

And yet...they _did_.

_"I like to listen to loud music when I'm bored - which happens quite a lot, might I add. I like to think that my internal commentary on you senatorial types is witty, if scathing. And I like to be 'unprofessional' whenever and wherever I please."_

Padme was startled to discover that Fox had a personality as multi-faceted and quirky as any other man, as any other sentient throughout the galaxy. He wasn't all cold military professionalism, no more than she was a conniving, back-stabbing politician. He was a soldier and he executed his duties without any flaw that Padme could see. He was no different from her, really, in that. She was a senator, bound by her own judgments of what was professional and honorable. But, her duties didn't dictate the woman she was beneath them.

_"... Under that military professionalism, he hides many strong passions."_

Padme turned Theena's words over in her mind. She remembered the passionate embrace she'd witnessed underneath the amphitheater and the young senator found herself wondering what it would be like to be on the receiving end of a stoic man's passions.

Stoic, Anakin was _not_. Despite it - or, perhaps because of it - Padme loved him, but in the sanctuary of her office, she could wonder. There was something darkly alluring about a man who could reign his emotions in so tightly that they could appear non-existent to the rest of the world. There was something appealing in the thought that he showed the depth of such passions to one being and one being only - for a moment, Padme quietly envied Theena her good fortune.

A good fortune that Padme instinctively knew that the level-headed Zabrak treasured. She'd seen the way Theena had looked at Fox; she had seen the way the commander had touched Theena in return.

Fox was _in love_. He was _a man_ in love. Padme caught herself smiling at her reflection in the darkening window.

Commander Fox was a _man_, as was every other clone. The galaxy now held responsibility for the lives of thousands of them - men without names, men without a home, men without families.

Men who were _not_ droids. Men who were capable of emotions and complexities that could never be mimicked by a machine.

Padme pondered the Rights of Sentience and the three "unalienable rights" that they were supposed to uphold.

_Life_.

Fox longed for a life that currently danced just outside his reach. Padme realized, with a slowly breaking heart, that being stationed on Coruscant had to be inexpressibly difficult for him. He had to see couples, families, _normalcy_ all around him, every day. She couldn't fault him for the few bits of pleasure he tried to snatch in the opportunities that came his way.

She couldn't fault him for falling in love with a vivacious, brazen female. In many ways, Theena represented that one thing Fox coveted most - a life of his own, to do as he pleased.

_Liberty_.

This was, perhaps, the gravest ill the Republic had unwittingly imposed upon its conveniently cloned soldiers. They were little better than _slaves_ - living by the orders and whims of others, without their own say in what happened to their lives.

Padme wiped away a tear.

_What have we done?_ she wondered.

They were brave men, to a fault. She'd met Captain Rex, had seen the way he followed young Ahsoka with a faith that was almost blind. She'd met Commander Cody - she'd heard the respect reflected in his voice when he spoke to Obi-Wan. And she often caught bits of the Republic anthem hummed from underneath anonymous helmets, as she walked the Senate halls.

They were _proud_ to serve the Republic, to die for her. But what would the Republic give them in return? The war couldn't go on forever - what would happen to them, once the conflicts ceased?

Padme pressed her cheek against the window and leaned against its cool, smooth surface. Her eyes looked out, unseeing, over the glittering scape of Galactic City.

_The Pursuit of Happiness_.

_Every_ sentient sought happiness, in whatever way appealed to them. Some found happiness in the misery of others. Some found happiness in giving of themselves. Some found happiness within Senate halls. Some found happiness behind a farmer's plow.

Padme now realized that the clones were no different. Fox had shown her that, by kissing his lover with a reckless disregard for where they were.

Fox pursued his own happiness, undaunted by the confines of his duty and his soldier's professionalism. And Padme had no doubt that he would continue to pursue his happiness across the galaxy, if need be, come war or no war. He didn't need the justification of others to take what was his by natural right.

The young senator suspected such was true for _all_ clones. One way or another, they found ways to express themselves, to set themselves apart as individuals, to develop their personalities. And, all the while, their very existences, at the mercy of the GAR and the Republic at large, shouted for someone to take notice of the truth that was denied them -

_Are we not sentient?_

* * *

"Is it just me, or is the Guard a little...on edge today?" Padme handed a cup of Alderaan black tea to her good friend, Senator Organa.

Several months had passed since her conversation with Commander Fox. It seemed like yesterday to her, though, thanks to the unending maelstrom of activity that dictated day-to-day life within the Senate.

"You haven't heard?" Bail accepted the cup graciously, but arched an eyebrow in surprise.

"Obviously not," Padme put her hands on her stomach, as if that would hold in the secret of the new life she nestled within.

"Commander Fox has defected."

Bail's announcement had an unexpected affect on Padme. She gasped and immediately reached behind her to grab the arm of her chair and to steady herself as she collapsed into the seat.

"What?"

"He deserted. Commander Thire discovered his disappearance this morning," Bail eyed Padme's pale face with no small amount of concern. "Are you all right, Padme?"

"I'm just..." her hands fluttered away from her stomach in an expression of mixed emotion. "Shocked, that's all."

"Oh, it gets better," Bail leaned his hip against her table and took a sip of his tea. "He was last seen in the company of Senator Theena Dur - who is now suspected as a Separatist sympathizer and possible spy."

Padme closed her eyes in quiet dismay.

_Oh, Fox..._

"That's going to make things difficult for the United Anobian Coalition, to say the least," she said out loud, trying not to belay the truth of her thoughts.

"Indeed," the Alderaan senator nodded thoughtfully and then added after a moment of thought. "What I don't understand though, is _why_. Fox was a good commander and loyal - I thought."

Padme suddenly realized that she had an insight into Commander Fox that had evaded everyone else within the Senate walls. Slowly, she exhaled, and her eyes traveled over toward the window.

"Tell me, Senator," she echoed words that had been spoken to her, not so long before. "Do you believe in the Rights of Sentience?"

"Of course," she didn't need to look at Bail, to recognize the mild indignation in his voice.

"Could you quote me the preamble?"

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all sentients are created equal, that they are endowed with certain unalienable Rights, and that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."

In the silence that followed, Padme could almost imagine Bail asking, "what's this all about?"

"Fox deserted because of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness," Padme finally turned her head away from the window and met Bail's wise eyes. "The Republic engineered him and thousands of others like him, as if they were droids. We've _treated_ them like droids - expecting them to fight our fights and die for our causes."

Bail chewed on his lip and didn't quite meet Padme's eyes. For a moment, she thought her esteemed colleague would make a political excuse for the rights so carelessly denied a whole army of men. Instead, he finally looked her in the eye and said the very words she'd been too weak to utter herself.

"Well...if the Republic won't honor its own Rights of Sentience... I suppose we'll just have to change that, then. Won't we, Senator?"

Padme's heart swelled - Fox's defiance would not go unrewarded.

"Indeed."

There was hope for the future - Padme was sure of it, as she pressed her hands unconsciously against her stomach once more.

In defying his duties, Fox had shown her the truth of the man behind the clone. It was now time for her to do _her_ duty and to share the truth of a simple question with the entire galaxy -

_"Am I not sentient?"_

* * *

_**A/N**: I've been inspired by **Queen** and **reulte**, who have both created an excellent series of connected vignettes exploring the backgrounds of some of our favorite clones. If you haven't read "**Said the Joker**", "**Haruu**" or "**What Any of It Is Worth", **I definitely recommend all three of them! They've inspired me to try my own had a collection of semi-connected vignettes._

_The vignettes you'll find in **(Virtues) From A Certain Point of View** are based on events explored in my own little fannon. If you haven't read "**A Thousand Suns: Redemption**" or it's sequel, **"A Thousand Suns: Rebellion"**, I would definitely give them a try. All of the clones explored within these vignettes eventually play a part in ATS. *wink wink* *nudge nudge* VFACPOV gives me a chance to explore some of the back stories that won't make it in to my "**Captains & Commanders series**" (of which, **"A Thousand Suns: Redemption/Rebellion"** are the first two parts)._

_I decided to start with Fox, thanks to an amazing Christmas present I was given from an equally amazing artist (thank you, **Elorrra87**!). :) It was a picture of Padme glancing to the side, with a particularly poignant expression on her face. That really inspired me and several hours later, we have "**Truth**", as she has her assumptions challenged by a clone who had definitely started to find his voice._

_Love it? Hate it? Like it? Lemme know...!_


	2. Generosity

**The Knightly Virtues: _Generosity_**

**In which Fives is given a second chance.**

* * *

_"Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared."_

**Buddha**

* * *

"You know," Fives' rather intriguing roommate, chewed thoughtfully on his lower lip as they surveyed the shimmering flimsi wrapped around the rails of their beds. "Females are _strange_."

Fives sat in his bed and wondered absently how he'd managed to miss the process of sudden redecoration. Blue-and-white strands of frayed flimsi wrapped around the rails at the foot of his bed, interspersed with little colored balls that looked suspiciously like rolled-up-and-painted bits of surgical gauze.

His roommate's bed was wrapped up in red-and-white flimsi, which glittered garishly underneath the stern, no-nonsense lights of their hospital room. The two men looked across the space between their beds and exchanged a rather rueful sort of look.

Fives just shrugged.

"Who you tink did it?" he asked, slowly - his enunciation still not the best.

He was lucky to have survived that explosion on the planet orbiting slowly underneath the Medstar, so he didn't complain. A slight speech impediment because of the scars on the side of his face and his throat, was a small nuisance in comparison to the bigger price his body had paid for making it through.

"Oh, I have a few ideas," the ARC captain rubbed the back of his neck and swung his legs over the side of his bed.

Fives briefly envied the man his relative good health. He had two legs again, himself, but he was too self-conscious to swing his bare prosthetic out from under the cover of his starch-white sheets.

The GAR was too cheap to pay for a synflesh prosthetic. They were almost too cheap to pay for his chance at another life, too, but "The Fearsome Threesome" - as the men admiringly dubbed them behind their backs - hadn't given anyone much choice in the matter. One quickly learned that in the face of three beautiful females - two of whom were Jedi and one of whom was a highly influential medical scientist - resistance was truly futile.

"And where do you think _you're_ going, Captain?" a ray of unadulterated _radiance_ swept into the room, dressed neatly in a bright blue tunic and almost blinding white pants.

Her gold headband winked cheerfully in the light, but it paled in comparison to the brilliance of her smile. Fives sighed and leaned back on his pillows - resistance against his crush on her and her two equally engaging colleagues was futile, too.

"I'm going up to the ward desk, to see what happened to the sanity in this place."

Fives' one eyebrow lifted in mild surprise - _Captain_? He'd only known his roommate of the last few days by "Del" and had assumed, since no rank was given, that his fellow ARC was a private, like him. The truth of his brother's identity was a little intimidating.

ARC captains had well-earned their reputation as the "baddest in the bunch." They usually operated alone and in the occasional missions where they didn't, _no one_ questioned their authority. For the first time in the last month, Fives was sincerely thankful for his trouble in talking - his mouth was equally legendary for getting him into trouble and it was the reason why Echo was a sergeant and _he_ wasn't. The last thing Fives needed, was to smart off - unknowingly - to an ARC captain; he was grateful to be rather incapable of voicing 90% of what he thought, for the moment.

"Captain" stood up with relative ease and Fives envied him, again. His roommate was recuperating from a torn rotator cuff - an easy fix under the skilled hands of the Miralukan Jedi standing defiantly in the ARC's way. He'd been assigned a week of physical therapy - just to be on the safe side - and other than some reported stiffness in his shoulder, was practically fit for full duty.

Fives would never be fit for full duty, again.

"A little bit of sparkly flimsi on your beds and you're doubting our sanity?" Healer Marr - the Miralukan Jedi in question - stepped easily into the ARC's personal space and put her hand flat on his chest.

She stepped into her hand and Fives watched with considerable fascination, as the short, curvy Jedi pushed the much larger, stronger ARC back down onto his bed. He noticed that her hand lingered a little too long his roommate's chest and that her fingers brushed down his hospital tunic a little too casually. Fives' interest deepened considerably - he had a knack for reading interpersonal body language. It was a knack that went beyond what came almost intuitively to his brothers - it went beyond every clone's ability to read even the smallest body movement, in order to tell each other apart.

Fives had a knack for reading _anyone's_ body language - regardless of species or gender. And the subtle body language he read between his roommate and their Jedi healer was...enlightening.

"I'd like to know _why_ there's 'sparkly bits of flimsi' on our beds," the Captain crossed his arms over his chest as Healer Marr stepped away from him.

They _knew_ each other, Fives was almost certain. There was a casualness in the way they talked to each other and in the way the Captain watched her. But, they were also good at veiling the truth of their interactions - as the Jedi stepped away, the strange tension between them dissipated and her voice changed subtly, as if she were talking to just any other trooper.

"It was Lady Ly'ang's idea," Healer Marr waved her pale, slender hand with a laugh. "She's homesick and it's Mid-Winter's Eve on Pantora. Well," the Jedi paused and pursed her lips together thoughtfully. "It was more like General Offee's idea. And mine. Lady Ly'ang was just the excuse for a little bit of fun."

She shrugged lightly, her expression open and playful. Fives watched her every move, both fascinated and heart-heartbreakingly entranced by her. She was beautiful - pale, with her white hair and fair skin - and endearing. Healer Marr had a heart as big as the galaxy and she wore it proudly on her sleeve. Fives knew he wasn't the only man on the ward who harbored a crush on her - it was hard not to, really, when she flashed that radiant smile of hers.

He glanced at the ARC captain, who was sitting on his bed with a sour sort of expression. By the looks of things, having a crush on Healer Marr was rather pointless, even if she _hadn't_ been a Jedi. He envied Del, this time for reasons that had nothing to do with the physical.

"So covering our beds in flimsi is a Pantoran custom?" Del looked distinctly unimpressed.

"Really, Captain, I don't know what you have against flimsi," Healer Marr just laughed.

"It's _flimsi_," was the tart reply.

She just shook her head and Fives was momentarily distracted by the way her long, white braid bounced cheerfully across her shoulders. Her laughter filled the room as she pulled a datapad out of her tunic pocket and pressed a button.

"Lady Ly'ang has been on this Medstar since it went into orbit two years ago and she hasn't been home _once_. Her planet's holiday of Mid-Winter means quite a lot to her and she's been nearly crying about missing it for the third year in a row," Healer Marr tilted her head to the side and Fives knew she was listening to the audio streaming from the datapad in her hand to the comlink she kept in her ear at all times.

She couldn't see to read, so she had a special datapad designed specifically for the Miraluka and other blind sentients throughout the galaxy. Since information was shared primarily by datapad - especially on a Medstar, when information had to be available at the snap of a finger - her comlink was virtually indispensable.

"Since her efforts on this Medstar directly affect the men on this ward, we thought it might be a nice touch if we celebrated Mid-Winter for her, in place of her family back home on Pantora. General Offee and I put it to a vote with the other men on the ward while you two were asleep."

"And you decorated our beds while we were _asleep_?" Del sounded like he couldn't decide whether to be angry, amused, or impressed.

Fives knew exactly what he was feeling. They were Advanced Recon Commandos - the toughest soldiers in the galaxy. Since Fives had been promoted from within the trooper ranks, he knew the stories well - ARCs were said to sleep with one eye open, or even both. That two females had managed to sneak into their room and decorate their beds with colored balls and flimsi, was something neither one of them really wanted advertised.

Even if said two females were Jedi.

"Yes," Healer Marr put her datapad back in her pocket and cocked her hip in a saucy retort. "And you both snore like a bantha."

Neither Del nor Fives had anything intelligent to say back to _that_ bit of reveling information, so they both just stared at her, nonplussed. She couldn't see them staring, but it didn't seem to matter. The Jedi just laughed and jerked her finger toward the doorway behind them.

"I believe you have physical therapy with General Offee, Captain. I suggest you get to it."

Del made a growling sort of sound in the back of his throat, but he did as he was told. His large, bulky frame stood up from his bed and he towered over Healer Marr for a moment. The two just considered each other for a moment and Fives felt it again - that strange tension. He watched, curious, but nothing further happened between them. Del was slightly turned, so Fives couldn't really read his face, though he thought he caught a flash of something in the Captain's brown eyes.

Without another word, the senior ARC left the room, his feet heavy against the blue-painted, duracrete floor. That left Fives alone in the room with the object of his crush and he felt his ears turn a light shade of red.

They _always_ turned a light shade of red, when Healer Marr came around him.

"So, tell me, Fives," she took a seat in the chair between his bed and the gray, durasteel wall. "How are you feeling today?"

She reached out as she spoke, her hands steady and sure, despite her lack of eyesight. Her fingers were cool and soft against his jaw, and Fives had to make a conscious effort not to tilt his face into her palms. He was pretty sure that nuzzling into his Jedi Healer's hands was against regulation.

"Good," he managed to enunciate the "d", even if he had to draw out his "oo" a little longer than normal.

"Hard" sounds were still difficult for him to make. Too often, his "t" and "d" sounded the same and he couldn't pronounce sounds like "sh" or "th" at all, just yet. He was patient with himself, though - it was one of his better virtues. He'd learned long ago, as a child on Kamino, that there was very little in life that one could rush before its time. He'd be able to talk normal again when his muscles allowed it, and not a second sooner.

"Your nerves and muscles are healing up nicely," Healer Marr's fingers danced gently along the curve of his jaw, where the scar-tissue on his face was thickest.

A sensation like warm, running water flowed through the fibers, capillaries, veins, and tendons on that side of his face. Fives recognized it for what it was, by now - he couldn't _use_ the Force and he wasn't even sensitive to it. But, he knew when it was used to heal him, mostly because he could literally _feel_ the burned, fractured, broken, and battered parts of himself knit together under the Jedi's careful hands.

The warm feeling of water was followed by a tingling in his face that wasn't entirely unpleasant. He remembered the first time he'd felt the Force knitting him back together, forcing his cells to heal and regenerate. It had _hurt_ - he remembered screaming from the pain of it, though the memory was distant, now, and vague.

Healer Marr, he had learned, did most of her healing on the cellular level. He'd heard other nurses talk about her - even among the Jedi, the bubbly Miraluka had a rare gift. She could reach into the basic building blocks of life and manipulate them with the Force. She could make cells stop replicating; she could encourage them to grow; she could control how fast they multiplied. But, he'd heard, she most enjoyed making cells _grow_. As a result, she held two unique positions on the Medstar - she was the head of the burn unit and she was also in charge of the more delicate reconstructive medicine.

He had also heard, that the reason she was called "Healer" and not "General", was because she "couldn't fight her way out of a flimsi bag." Fives had heard the rumors about how she'd thoroughly intimidated a Devaronian doctor who had tried to sign termination orders on him and several others who had been brought in with him. He'd also see how she'd stood up to Del, completely unmindful of the captain's raw strength and brutal capabilities. Fives was of the secret opinion that Healer Marr could certainly fight her way out of a flimsi bag - and worse, if she had to. There were more ways to fight, than with a blaster or a lightsaber.

He'd learned that himself, in the weeks he'd spent on the Medstar, fighting to keep his sanity and rebuild his shattered self-image.

Most of Fives' back and chest had been burned in the blast that nearly claimed his life. He'd been in a coma, hovering near death for weeks, but he'd since learned that Healer Marr had been directly involved in his recovery in the ICU. She'd stood with the doctors, at his side, while they grafted new skin onto him. She'd encouraged his skin to knit together with the new. Her gifts had minimized his pain and the scarring on his body.

She was also in charge of helping heal his face. Every day, she came in and sat with him, and moved her hands gently across his injured jaw. She would explain to him what she was doing and Fives had learned to appreciate - even if he didn't fully _comprehend_ - how delicate and detailed her healing on him was.

Every day, he was able to open his mouth a little further. Every day, he was able to talk a little better. Every day, he was able to feel his face just a little bit more.

And, every day, he adored her.

Today, though, she talked about something new - about something Fives had been trying hard _not_ to think about.

"I've been talking to some people about what's going to happen to you once we let you go."

Fives closed his eyes, more from emotional pain, than from anything else. She seemed to sense this and her hand grew gentler, less clinical. She brushed her fingers against his hair, just above his ear, and Fives sighed softly.

"The general consensus has been desk work. But...you wouldn't be happy with an office job, would you, Fives?"

He gritted his teeth - more on one side than on the other - and shook his head slowly, his eyes still squeezed shut. In truth, Fives couldn't imagine a fate more reprehensible.

"Desk jockey" was what he'd heard some of his other brothers scornfully call the clueless civilians who made up the bulk of the GAR's behind-the-lines support staff. "Flimsi floozies" was another; "stylus shovers" yet another.

He didn't want to be any of those. He was an ARC - the best of the best - and proud of it. He couldn't even fathom a life spent doing anything else.

Except, maybe, as a father, with a family. But, Fives didn't allow himself the luxury of that thought. Especially not now, since no female would want a man who was missing half his body.

Or, so he told himself.

"I've talked to Captain Del a few times, while you've been in therapy," the Miralukan slowly withdrew her hand and Fives immediately longed for the gentle pleasure of her touch. "He's an old friend of mine."

His eyes fluttered open and he considered her thoughtfully for a moment. She'd put a strange inflection on the word "friend" that told him that Captain Del was anything _but_. He stifled another sigh - further proof that he didn't have a chance in the Nine Corellian Hells.

"He's put in a few calls, shaken a few heads together," she smiled briefly and leaned back in her chair; Fives arched a curious eyebrow.

_For me?_

"And he thinks he's found a good job for you, once you're cleared to leave," her smile grew brighter and Fives didn't dare to hope.

Clones injured in the line of duty got office jobs. No brother in his right mind made fun of _them_, but it was still an ignoble resignation. He'd never heard of exceptions being made. Especially not for clones who had lost two whole limbs and an eye.

"Captain Del tells me that you have a good eye for reading people and picking up subtle cues from almost any situation," Healer Marr tilted her head to the side and clasped her hands in her lap.

Fives followed her hands as they moved - he never got tired of watching them. Her fingers were small and slender, but steady. He knew how firm they could be, too, like durasteel, if the situation called for it. He absently noticed that someone had painted her nails for her - they were a pretty shade of pale pink. She didn't like to sit still, though - Jedi or not - and her fingers slowly twisted together. A simple silver ring winked in the glaring light and a new realization began to dawn on Fives.

"He thinks you might be able to teach that to others," she continued and Fives forced himself to look up at her face again.

"You ma-ma-" he stuttered; "r" was practically impossible for him to shape yet, but he tried his best. "Maa-eed."

Healer Marr grew very still and a strange expression crossed her face. It lightly furrowed her brow, just above the edge of her headband and threatened to tug down the corners of her mouth. Very quietly, and very gently, as if she were back to knitting the tissues of his face together, she asked him a simple question. Fives suddenly felt as if she was giving him an examination of another type entirely, testing him for some reason he shouldn't fail.

"Do you know who?"

Fives pondered this for a moment, but the answer seemed obvious. His heart plummeted and he couldn't even say the word - not because he couldn't shape the name on his tongue, but because he didn't want to. So, he just turned his head and looked at Del's empty bed and then at her. Then, remembering she couldn't see him, he forced himself to speak -

"Cat'ain," Fives sighed and slumped his shoulders.

"Del was right," she said softly and Fives wasn't surprised at all when she dropped the formality of rank. "You _do_ have a gift."

She fell silent again, for several long moments. Her fingers started to twist again and she fiddled with the ring on her left hand. Fives stared mournfully at it - it was just his luck, after all. He was too busy wallowing in his own self-pity, to be at all shocked by the unheard-of novelty of a _Jedi_ marrying a _clone_. He even forgot, for the moment, that Jedi weren't even supposed to be _able_ to marry. Never mind GAR opinion on a _clone_ captain marrying.

He _always_ had this kind of luck with the ladies. He didn't try to hide his sigh of disappointment. It was always _something_. Most of the time, before, that something had usually ended up being Echo - Fives _still_ hadn't figured out why the ladies seemed to practically _throw_ themselves at his dour brother. He chalked it up the "strong and silent type", but it was still annoying to leave the nightclubs and bars alone, just to find Echo entangled with a female - or more - in the morning.

Healer Marr's gentle voice nudged Fives grudgingly out of his bitter thoughts. And, in the wake of her words, he immediately forgot his private pity party.

"Echo told me, too, how you've saved his life on countless occasions, by spotting something he didn't, or reading something in an adversary's body language that he missed. Del thinks you should teach this skill to other ARCs, if you can."

Fives sputtered and blinked, as if to convey his hopeful confusion. Healer Marr seemed to sense what he was feeling and she brightened the whole room with her smile.

"Del put in a request that you be transferred back to Kamino as an ARC instructor. Word came back this morning - you've been approved, pending your complete recovery here."

Fives could only sit in his bed and stare at her, completely and utterly stunned. Even if he could talk, he would have been rendered speechless by her unbelievable announcement. A smile stretched across his lips, despite the pain it caused him on his "bad side". Something like laughter bubbled up from his chest, but it didn't come out sounding quite right. He stopped, embarrassed, but the Jedi in front of him just beamed and took his hands in hers.

"You have a good heart, Fives, and a wise soul. You should share both with as many beings as you can, in the life that's been given you," she suddenly leaned forward in her chair and Fives' breath stopped in his throat.

Her soft lips pressed gently against his forehead and he basked in the glory of it. She smelled sweet, like some sort of dark cake, and Fives closed his eyes in private rapture.

Her words, spoken with such archaic _knowing_, made him marvel in silent wonder.

"You'll save many more lives, yet. That's what the Force put you here to do - you have a great purpose ahead of you, Fives. Don't ever forget that you're far more than just a simple soldier."


	3. Courage

**Disclaimer:** _This chapter borrows characters and concepts from __**Karen Traviss' Republic Commando **__and __**Imperial Commando**__ series. Unfortunately, I don't own Walon Vau, Kal Skirata, or any of the Cuy'val Dar. Though, I have to admit, on occasion, I wish I did..._

**The Knightly Virtues: _Courage_**

**In which one of the Cuy'val Dar puts herself in Walon Vau's debt to save a life_._**

* * *

_"We must build up dikes of courage, to hold back the flood of fear."_

**Martin Luther King, Jr.**

* * *

"Please enlighten us," Priest crossed his arms over his chest and sneered. "The life of a _Cuy'val Dar_ is hard enough, without _aruetiise_ making our lives more difficult."

Ru'_buir_ growled dangerously, deep in her throat, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw her ears flatten against her skull. But, she said nothing - this was my own fight and she could offer nothing more than moral support, by standing at my side.

"I saved a baby from being killed. I hardly see why this has caused such an ungodly stir," I clenched my fists at my side and jutted my chin out defiantly.

"You saved a _clone_," Reau piped up, her stance distinctly judgmental.

She stood between Priest and Vau. I pointedly ignored the tall, black-armored mass to her left; it was probably just my own paranoia, but I could _feel_ Vau's eyes boring through the dark visor of his _buy'ce_, into my skull. Of course, my jury of eleven Mandalorians were _all_ staring holes through my head, but I felt the weight of Vau's consideration the most.

I had always felt his calculated gaze, from the moment I arrived in Tipoca City with Ru'_buir_ and I had spotted him observing the landing deck through a passageway window. I had since found that Vau's predatory interest was a hard thing to shake - even if his gaze was real _or_ imagined.

"I do feel congratulations is in store, though," Skirata piped up, his tone mild and slightly amused.

I shifted my attention from Vau, to the short, scrappy fighter who had decided to befriend me - sometimes, I wondered if the choice to do so had been prompted as a response to Vau's sneering superiority. Priest made a rude sort of noise in the back of his throat - it probably didn't surprise anyone present that Skirata would take my side in the current "discussion."

"I didn't think it was actually possible to piss off the aiwha-bait. You've managed to work Orun Wa into a proper fit."

Davin made a noise behind his _buy'ce_ that sounded suspiciously like an aborted chortle. Priest hissed through his teeth, though, and shot Skirata a rather dirty look.

"Yes, and a lot of good that's done!" Reau jumped in again and I fought the urge to grind my teeth; the woman put me on edge every time she opened her mouth. "Now the 'aiwha-bait' - as you call them, Skirata - are screaming at Fett to null our contracts and kick us off-world!"

"Because _that_ would just be an insufferable fate," Gilamar mumbled, just barely loud enough for the rest of us to hear.

"Skirata already put the Kaminoans on edge, by stopping them from reconditioning the Nulls," Reau rounded viciously on Gilamar. "Now someone _else_," she waved a rather haughty hand in my general direction, without even sparing me a glance. "Has interfered with their business, by rescuing a clone that quite clearly doesn't need to live!"

The "clone that doesn't need to live", squirmed against the _birikad_ slung over my back and made a small mewling sound. Another, louder mewl followed and I realized with a primal instinct, that he was beginning to voice his disapproval of the situation - in other words, he was hungry and a bottle was clearly lacking in his immediate future.

"_Udesii_," Ru_'buir_ murmured; she reached out a carefully sheathed paw.

I couldn't see what she was doing, but whatever she did calmed the little one down. I could feel the gazes gathered around me seemingly triple in intensity and I knew that now wasn't the time or place to challenge Reau's heartless sentiments.

"Even by Mando'ad standards, he's too damaged to live," her eyes narrowed as she finally turned away from Gilamar.

I clenched my fists, but said nothing. I knew she was baiting me, hoping for a fight. I wouldn't give her the satisfaction. Instead, Skirata did.

"Speak for yourself," he snapped, his patience for the situation clearly coming to its end. "The child deserves to live. I would have done the same, if I had discovered him."

"Yes, because you're a soft-hearted _di'kut_," Priest sneered.

Skirata shifted the weight on his heels almost instantaneously, but before he could launch himself between Vau and Reau, Vau threw out his black-armored arm and smacked the older man soundly across the chest. Skirata stopped instantly, but his eyes flickered angrily from Vau, to Reau, to Priest, and back again to Vau. Vau, on the other hand, seemed absolutely unconcerned with his arch-adversary's barely controlled fury; he kept his arm across Skirata's chest and calmly turned his head to address Priest.

"So, we do something about it."

The unspoken threat of punishment in his voice sent a shiver down my spine. Tiny feet beat once, twice, against my armor, as the little one strapped to my back continued to fidget. Every little movement only strengthened my resolve - he was a baby. A helpless, crippled baby, who had captured my heart the second I discovered him. I didn't care that he was like a million others. I didn't care that he was disfigured and "imperfect."

I was disfigured and imperfect, too. I wasn't about to hand over a child to his death. Especially _not_ when the value of his life was being measured against the incompetence of his creator.

"I suggest you hand over the reject," Priest promptly held out his hand, palm up. "So we can hand him back to the Kaminoans and this _osik_ can stop rolling downhill. Fett's not happy with you and I think it's fair to say we'd all rather keep our employers happy."

"Speak for yourself," Skirata muttered again, as he roughly shoved Vau's arm away from him.

"If Fett's not happy with me, he can come down from his solitary isolation and tell me himself," I drew myself up to my full height, even though my left foot protested silently at the subtle shift in weight.

"Fett told us to take care of this ourselves," Apma's quiet voice filled the sudden silence. "He's not on-world to deal with this."

"Hand it over," Priest persisted; he curled his fingers at me, as if beckoning me like a dog.

The superiority play was sickening enough, but what did my patience in was his use of "it." I clenched my firsts so hard, I felt my carefully trimmed nails biting into the meaty part of my palm.

"I'd sooner fight you," I hissed and leaned forward just far enough to spit into Priest's outstretched hand.

His face turned a brilliant shade of crimson and he looked practically apoplectic. For several seconds, he sputtered, in an attempt to form words, but Walon Vau beat him smoothly to the punch.

"An excellent idea," he slowly crossed his arms over the broad width of his armored chest.

His voice was a rich purr and in a flash of awful insight, I sensed what was coming next.

"I'll do the honors, if you don't mind, Priest."

"She insulted _me_ -" he started, but Vau cut him off; I could feel the weight of Vau's strange, golden-colored eyes and I suddenly regretted my demonstration of spirited verve.

"I said, _I'll_ fight her, Priest."

There was no room for argument in Vau's toneless voice. Then again, only an idiot would challenge Vau. Priest was a heartless sociopath, but he wasn't an idiot. His jaw worked furiously for a second or two, as if he was considering an argument, but then he looked at Reau and grudgingly kept his peace.

"Do you know anything about a Battle Circle, Par'jain?" Vau turned his attention toward me and I felt my courage falter.

"No," I admitted reluctantly.

I fought the urge to look at Ru'_buir_ for support. My fate was rapidly being decided without any room at all for my consent and I could feel a healthy amount of fear curl around my heart.

I was just barely Mandalorian. I had followed the ways of the _Resol'nare_ and taken up my armor just a mere six months before; Ru'_buir_ had taught me a lot in those short months, but that wasn't near enough time to teach me the necessary skills to take on the likes of Walon Vau. I doubted six _years_ would be enough.

"Well," Vau paused, before delivering his verdict without an ounce of human emotion. "You're about to find out."

* * *

"I can't believe this!" Skirata paced back and forth across the breadth of the small common room.

The gathering of Cuy'val Dar jurors had dispersed, after Vau had declared himself my judge. His verdict left no room for repeal, either. My only recourse was to fight him.

And, inevitably, to be humiliated.

I knew I wasn't going to win. It was realistically impossible. Never mind that I had gout and that I'd been having almost constant flare-ups since coming to this miserable, water-logged world with Ru_'buir_. I knew only the barest basics of hand-to-hand, was only marginally proficient with a rifle or a blaster, and the only thing I knew to do with blades was how to forge them.

Unfortunately, the only hope I had _was_ with a blade of some sort. I had studied fencing as a young woman, before the onset of my gout in the earlier years of my twenties. I had been more than proficient with both a foil and a saber - in my youth, at the University, I had won a rather impressive number of awards for my skill.

But, that was nearly eight years ago. I hadn't picked up a foil since the diagnosis of my gout and bladed skills were perishable.

I had an hour, until I met Vau in a Battle Circle, with weapons of _his_ choosing. My stomach knotted painfully at the very thought; Skirata's incessant pacing to and fro wasn't helping my anxiety levels, either.

"If someone doesn't beat me to it, I'm going to _kill_ Vau one of these days," he paused his pacing long enough to stare out of the window and snarl at the rain.

I idly wondered how often Skirata had sworn such, in his years of knowing Walon Vau. I didn't know much about the two men, but the adversarial relationship between them was hard to miss. I had discovered, from a few well-placed questions, that the two men had known each other for a long time. And had practically hated each other from the very start.

To distract myself, I glanced down at the baby in my arms. The side of his little mouth was twisted, his left eye drooped, and he had a clubbed foot - a part of me was frankly amazed that Wa had allowed him to live this long, with such obvious deformities. It seemed just further proof of the Kaminoan's inability to feel basic sentient emotions.

He cared so little about the lives he created, that he couldn't be bothered to check their progresses once he'd encased their cells in a growth tank. He let nature take over and only after they'd taken on life and form, did he bother to check the efficiency of his handiwork.

They were just experiments to him. And, to date, _failed _experiments, at that. The Nulls were practically normal children - at least, so far as their inability to follow orders. The Alpha "batch" wasn't much different, except that it seemed their independence increased with their maturity.

Both, failures for their independence and individuality. Otherwise, though, they were healthy and whole.

This little boy, however, suffered the most for Orun Wa's short-comings.

He was the prototype for a new "batch" of clones - the CT "series". And he was Orun Wa's 99th attempt for a "perfect template."

I watched as the baby sucked enthusiastically at the bottle I held steady in my hand. His dark eyes watched me with interest and intelligence and in this respect, he seemed no different than my little brother, once upon a time. There were vast differences between him and my brother, though - most importantly of which, was the fact that he was practically a newborn and already as large and biologically advanced as a six-month old.

Wa had miscalculated whatever determined a clone's accelerated aging. Before taking him away from Wa's calloused care, I had been promptly informed that the little one's aging would take place at nearly seven times the rate of other clones.

He would live the span of his life in a projected 15 years or less.

It was at that moment that my heart had broken on his behalf. Ru_'buir_ had renamed me "Shereshoy" upon my adoption - the name meant "lust for life". I had painted my shiny-new beskar'gum orange, to reflect my name and the Mandalorian ideal I had taken to heart.

My lust for life extended beyond my own and I wanted to share that lust with the little one in my arms. He would barely have a life; I knew what it was like, now, to live deformed and broken. To add cruelty to injustice, a mere miscalculation had shortened his lifespan. If I could share my lust of life with him, then perhaps it would give him something. I couldn't give him normalcy. I couldn't change the circumstances that had brought him into the world.

But, I could teach him kindness, and wisdom, and what little joy I could. I could teach him about what truly made a man.

I could teach him to face his fate with _courage_.

I kissed him gently on the forehead and he stared at me with wide, sentient eyes.

He had the eyes of what my grandmother would have called "an old soul". No Kaminoan engineering could give him that. That was _his_ - his spark of sentience. His spark of individuality.

I would teach him to hold it sacred to his heart. I would show him how to share it with others.

"Vau will beat you bloody," Skirata pulled me out of my baby-centered thoughts and back into the harsh reality that the chrono ticked away minute by minute.

I lifted my head and looked up at the stocky Mandalorian. I shrugged and tried to play it off the grim truth of his words with a casual shrug.

"_K'atini_," I said, "_it's only pain_".

I looked down at the child in my eyes, as if to hide the truth of what I felt from Skirata. He seemed to know, anyway, that I was merely trying to bluff my way out the pressure of his scrutiny. He sighed heavily, put a hand on my shoulder, and squeezed gently.

"Is he worth it?" he asked softly.

I couldn't be angry at him for asking - I knew he didn't mean it to be condescending or self-righteous. It was a fair question.

I searched for my answer in the twisted little face that stared up at me. In the background, I could hear Ru_'buir_ muttering to herself as she rummaged through something - I knew it was her way of dealing with the stress of having her first adopted daughter go up in a fight she wasn't prepared to win.

_Was he worth it?_ I cradled the wee one in my arms and slowly nodded.

Any life was "worth it." Every sentient had a right to a life of their own - the slave block had taught me that.

Life. Freedom. Dignity.

They were always worth fighting for.

* * *

Vau surprised me by stepping up into my space and bending down slightly to whisper into my ear, before I slipped my _buy'ce_ on.

"I'll give you an out," his dark voice purred against my skin; I quivered under the touch of his breath. "I've seen you limping the last few days. You can save yourself a lot of pain, by just handing him over."

I turned my head slightly to look at him and my lips nearly brushed his smooth-shaven cheek. My nose flared slightly as I breathed in his powerful scent of sweat, soap, metal, and strill. His odious, six-legged pet's odor nearly overwhelmed the senses, but I could pick out a musky undertone that had nothing to do with the strill drooling next to his feet. I wondered absently what Vau would smell like freshly scrubbed and away from "Lord Mirdalan". The idea of Vau freshly scrubbed lead to a few other interesting thoughts...

I cleared my throat nervously and forced myself to meet his gaze. This wasn't the time to follow mental bunny trails into the red-light district of la-la land, even if they _did_ help me avoid the grim reality of the situation at hand.

Thankfully, Vau's impressive set of skills didn't include mind-reading. He was watching me, his body perfectly still, like a hunter waiting patiently on his prey. I thought it a bit peculiar that he was offering me an out - it was almost as if he were testing me.

Suddenly, I wasn't so sure that the end point of this exercise was merely public humiliation.

"_He_ is too small to fight for what's his by right of sentience. So, I'll fight for him," I paused and I could tell that Vau was silently weighing the conviction of my words. "It's the right thing to do," I added, softly.

"So, you'll let yourself be humiliated for the sake of a single fabricated human?" his golden-green eyes narrowed, but it was an expression of guarded surprise, not contempt.

"He's still human," I murmured, my lips barely brushing against his skin.

Vau pulled back suddenly and straightened into his full, towering height. I was taller than Skirata and Vau was still a good head taller than me.

"Even among the Mando'ad, there's a distinction made between courage and foolishness," he said in a normal, almost conversational tone of voice.

I saw the ring of bystanders shift slightly as Vau backed away from me and pulled his gloves out of his belt. I gritted my teeth and risked a glance toward my left, where Ru_'buir_ cradled the little one in her arms. My cultured Aldeeranian sensibilities didn't like the idea of bringing a child to a fight, but his presence had been specifically demanded.

His fate would be settled here. I could only hope that by some Force-given beginner's luck, that I could prevail.

Movement to my right caught my eye and I watched as Tay'haai took center stage. He had his helmet hooked to his belt - as did all of the bystanders - and that reminded me that it was probably time to put on my own.

"Rules of Engagement are as follows," Tay'haai put his hands behind his back and rocked a little on his heels as he glanced from me to Vau. "No deathblows are permitted. Neither combatant is allowed to leave the Battle Circle. The only weapons allowed are those designated by the combatant with the most honor. For today's Battle Circle, challenging of the champion will not be permitted.

"Sergeant Walon Vau," the younger Cuy'val Dar nodded deferentially toward Vau. "Choose your weapons."

"Beskad," was the almost instantaneous reply.

I felt my stomach plummet, but thankfully, I had just secured my _buy'ce_ in place. No one would see my private grimace.

The beskad were heavy - a far cry from the elegant foils I had wielded as a child. I had surprisingly good upper-body strength, because of my work as a blacksmith. But, my foot was swollen with gout and I limped, despite everything I did to hide it. I could fight around the pain for a little bit, but Vau would wear me down quickly. I couldn't really move - and he knew it.

He was going to use my weakness against me.

I glanced at Ru_'buir_ one last time, as Tay'haai ordered everyone back against the wall of the conveniently rounded room. I looked at the baby sleeping peacefully in her arms, to remind myself of why I was doing this.

Someone had to stand up for him.

I turned back to Vau and bit back a sigh.

This was going to _hurt_.

* * *

I discovered a whole new level of pain, as I fell face-first against the rough duracrete floor. Vau followed me down and his heavy weight nearly crushed me flat. I gasped against the knee that he pressed cruelly against my lower back, between the pieces of my back plates.

He'd dislocated my arm and I had to bite down hard on my lip to keep from screaming, when he settled his other knee against my shoulder. The full weight of his body pinned me to the floor, but I still would have struggled, if he hadn't exchanged his beskad for a knife, which he now pressed firmly underneath my _buy'ce_, against my pulsing jugular.

My armor had protected me against the very worst of his iron onslaught, but the biting edge of his beskad had drawn enough lines into my flesh to stain the floor under our feet. He'd dislocated my arm, brought the heel of his boot down onto my swollen foot, rammed the hilt of my own beskad into my stomach, snapped my neck back with a well-placed backhand, and kicked my feet out from under me.

And he was barely breathing heavy.

I was gasping for air, more as means to control my urge to scream from the pain throbbing sharply through my foot and leg, than for any other reason. I'd been holding my own rather decently, until Vau had decided to play dirty and stomp all over my weakness. I felt played and cheated - I would have taken off my helmet and my gloves and fought him literally tooth and nail, if I could.

I was angry. Pain nearly rendered me blind, but I was _furious_. I still wanted to fight back.

But, Vau had me where he wanted me. The cold edge of his knife tickled my throat and I tasted blood against my tongue, from where I had bitten through my lip.

"So, tell me," his deep voice filled the sanctuary of my helmet.

He'd decided to talk to me on a private line, which I thought was a little odd. If he wanted to taunt me, now was the time to do it, when he had an rapt audience.

"Was it worth it?"

"Yes," I hissed, without even pausing for a thought.

"Even if he dies?" Vau sounded faintly amused; I hated him all the more, for it.

"At least now he dies with some amount of honor," I fought the urge to squirm; one move and Vau's strategically placed blade would cut neatly through my artery.

For several long seconds, he was silent. It almost seemed as if he was thinking something over. Finally, he removed his knife from my throat and replaced it with his hand. His long, thick fingers grasped tightly against the back of my neck and held my head firmly against the floor in a classic demonstration of dominance.

"I believe the whole purpose to this Battle Circle, was to determine the fate of the clone baby you took from Orun Wa," Vau spoke more loudly this time and I didn't even have to consult my HUD, to know that he had switched to a public audio feed.

I could only see the feet directly across from me and those were standing perfectly still. The boots were covered by armor plates painted a sandy-gold. Skirata, then.

I finally closed my eyes against my pain. I'd done everything I could.

"Winner gets to decide," his fingers tightened slightly against my throat and his knees dug hard against my body. "Since I'm the one on top, I'd say that's me."

Usually, I would have made some smart, scathing comment about the one "on top", but I held my tongue in check. I was in enough pain as it was - at this point, getting hurt further wasn't going to change the inevitable.

My heart sank.

"The brat lives."

A low murmur of surprise buzzed around the room and the feet in front of me shifted, as if Skirata had suddenly shifted his weight. I blinked and it took several stunned seconds for what Vau was saying, to sink in.

The pressure of his weight eased almost instantly as he let go of my neck and stood up. He loomed over me for a minute and I managed to struggle onto my elbows. I lifted my head and twisted my neck around to look up and over my shoulder.

He straddled my prone, broken body, his hands held causally at his side. His entire posture screamed "victor" and he was arrogant in his display of indifferent superiority. I growled and started struggling between his feet. I wasn't going to let him stand over me with his overinflated ego, like some sort of plantation overlord.

Surprisingly, he got the hint and finished stepping over me.

"There's one condition," Vau suddenly bent his knees and rested his elbows against his thighs as he brought his voice down to my level. "He's your sole responsibility. Find some use for him."

I had absolutely no idea what "use" I could find for a disfigured clone, but I wasn't about to admit that.

"Deal," I managed to push myself onto my back and into some semblance of a sitting position.

Vau suddenly switched to a private channel again and grabbed my good arm. He roughly hauled me to my feet; I accidentally put weight on my bad leg and I yelped as pain shot through every single nerve in my body. I stumbled and fell against Vau, my hands scrabbling for purchase against his chest plate.

His hand on my arm tightened and he held me firmly against me when I tried to pull away.

"You owe me," he said threateningly; I stopped struggling and stiffened immediately under his hand.

I nearly replied, but I bit my tongue. I'd won a small victory - I wouldn't sacrifice it by losing my temper.

"That clone lives because _I_ decided he could. Don't forget that."

He let go of me suddenly and I wobbled dangerously on my one good leg. I would have fallen, but Skirata shouldered his way roughly past Vau and grabbed me around the waist. He let me settle my weight against his chest, and both Gilamar and Ru'_buir _appeared at Skirata's side. Helping hands reached out to guide me toward the door.

I glanced at Vau over my shoulder, as my little huddle steered me toward the exit.

"Let's get you to medical," Gilamar murmured, but I didn't really hear him.

If I was in Vau's debt, it was a small price to pay. The pain and the blood was an even smaller price, in comparison.

I'd won an infant's chance at life. Perhaps, in the grand scheme of the galaxy, it was a minuscule thing - a infinitesimal gesture.

But, honor was the watchword of the Par'jain clan. My beloved father, so many years before, had taught me to treat all sentient life with dignity and respect. I had taken _shereshoy_ - lust for life - upon myself as my own personal virtue.

I had paid a small price. And I didn't care what Walon Vau thought. He might think he was playing a game of his own scheming, but I'd won.

99 would live.

And I would teach him courage.


	4. Fidelity

**Dedication:** _To the **Repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell**.  
_

**Warning:** _If you are homophobic in any way, shape, or form...please pass this story over. This is sheer fluff (for the most part) and the rating of "T" still holds. However, if the idea of two men loving each other makes you uncomfortable...spare yourself the indignation and spare me the unnecessary commentary._

**The Knightly Virtues: _Fidelity_**

**In which a taciturn clone captain makes a solemn vow to remain faithful to all that he holds dear.**_  
_

* * *

_"Nothing is more noble, nothing more venerable than fidelity. Faithfulness and truth are the most sacred excellences and endowments of the human mind."_

**Marcus Tullius Cicero**

* * *

They sat in silence, like they usually did. Korbin sipped a tasteless broth out of his issued canteen cup and watched the sun slip lower toward the rim of the Derelkoos Desert. His companion chewed thoughtfully on a piece of spiced nerf jerky and stared off into the distance as well. The silence was comfortable - neither one was a man of many words and they both accepted that in the other.

The ARC captain had learned long ago how to dissolve his ration cube in hot water and drink it like a particularly flavor-less broth. Hot water was usually hard to come by in the field, but Korbin had discovered during a stint on Ryloth how quickly water could boil if left alone in a durasteel cup in desert temperatures. In the merciless Klatooine sun, it was an easy thing, then, to drop his ration cube into a cup of torrid water and drink it down like some strange tea.

A man could not live on ration cubes alone, however, no matter how much Kaminoan scientists insisted otherwise. Korbin was rather fond of food - _any _food, really, that didn't try to eat him first. So, he never went anywhere without a sealed stash of jerky, or other small bits of illicit munchies with which to augment his more meager rations.

His companion didn't even have ration cubes, thanks to an abrupt encounter with a mob of angry Klatooinians. Even Jedi were subject to the tasteless Kaminoan inventions, but General Tharen had lost his belt pouches in the course of their unexpected altercation.

So, Korbin shared his jerky with his Jedi, and willingly. The two of them had shared many things in the course of their three years of fighting together. Just the night before, they had shared a bed, their bodies. Korbin was certainly not about to begrudge a few strips of jerky. Not if it meant that Kian wouldn't go hungry for the night.

_Kian_, Korbin turned the name over in his mind.

There was great intimacy in the pronouncement of a first name. In the course of the last two years, Korbin had said that name boldly in the private moments between them - he had shouted it, growled it, laughed it, whispered it, moaned it. The laconic captain would always remember the first time he had dared to speak his lover's name - they had only just met and "General Tharen" was a mere Padawan, a newly-minted "Commander."

Regardless, _Kian_had outranked him. But, there was something about the ever-rebellious Corellian that had inspired Korbin's own daring. Maybe it was because Kian had never once called the clone by his designation, by his numbers. It had been "Korbin" from the start - no rank, no numbers, no stiff formality. When faced with such openly offered intimacy, it was hard not to give it back.

Korbin had said Kian's name that first time casually, with confidence - what Korbin would never admit, was that he had used the Jedi's first name intentionally, to gauge his reaction. To see if the man who would dare to lead _him_, an ARC - and much more, to boot - was a man worth a soldier's respect.

Then again, Korbin mused as he took another sip of his dinner, he probably never had to admit such things. There was much Kian knew, without Korbin ever having to say a word. The Jedi healer was naturally empathic and there wasn't much that ever missed his quiet notice. Korbin was fairly certain that Kian knew when the clone captain tested him - Kian had his lover's undying regard, however, because he never let on what it was he _did_ know.

He never took any chance to be "superior", or to hold his rank and titles over the junior captain. Korbin had been undercover on a mission in the Mid Rim, when he had heard word of Kian's Knighting. At that time, just mere months into the War, they hadn't yet become lovers. They were "just" friends - sparring mates who had trained together at the Temple in a special program initiated by the Chancellor. Korbin had enjoyed their training and had enjoyed their easy camaraderie - a rare thing to find with a Jedi. At the word of Kian's Knighting, Korbin had worried that the end had come to that friendship, that rank and title would change the easy-going Corellian.

When their paths had crossed again, several months later, Korbin found the same friendship with "General Tharen" as he had had with "Commander Tharen." They stayed in touch, through their various missions and various adventures. Several months later, they had found love in a hopeless place.

Korbin treasured it, treasured stolen moments like the one they were currently sharing. What they had found between them was more than the ARC had ever hoped for; it still amazed him that the Jedi chewing nerf next to him had so gladly returned his own intrepid advances. They were breaking at least a dozen rules - most notably, fraternization on Korbin's end and the Jedi Code on Kian's part. Neither one of them were allowed attachments and most certainly not to each other.

And yet...here they were. Sharing a humble dinner together, their legs dangling over the edge of a Klatooine plateau, where high savannah gave way to barren desert. They had fought back-to-back just hours earlier, against an angry mob of sentients who, individually, nearly weighed as much as both of _them _put together. Afterwards, Korbin had gotten them out of the city in one piece and Kian had bandaged the clone's right shoulder, which had been clawed into bloody ribbons during the fray.

Korbin would have more scars to show now; he was also short a pauldron, since it had been ripped off his body early on in the battle. Klatooinians were brutal creatures and at the moment, the clone nursed a rather grudging ill-will toward their species as a whole. He knew that was best kept to himself, however, as Kian's master had been Tarados Gon, a Klatooinian Jedi killed at Geonosis.

Korbin could relate to the misery of grief and loss. So, while Klatooinians were not currently high on his list of favorite species, he could spare sympathy for his lover. Kian's experience with and knowledge of the Klatooinians was why he had been sent on this intelligence-gathering mission in the first place. Korbin had never been asked to revisit Geonosis; he couldn't fathom the true depth of Kian's current emotional state, but he knew it was conflicted.

He knew that from the night before, when they had shared a simple plasti-foam pallet together and stared up at the stars. Kian had quietly admitted his struggle with the Dark Side, how difficult it still was not to be overwhelmed with anger over his master's death. In some ways, he struggled with his own compassion, with the Light Side, as well. Korbin had felt something in his Jedi weep earlier, as he had turned his lightsaber against members of a species he had been raised to respect. At the moment, Korbin knew that Kian was mourning, a part of him there with him, but a greater part lost in a past they didn't share.

So, they sat in silence, and Korbin drank his broth.

Kian startled him, when he spoke.

"It's beautiful, don't you think?" the Jedi's voice was gentle, as he waved his hand toward the sacred site that glittered in the distance before them.

Korbin squinted and considered the gigantic fountain that dominated the horizon. Its seemingly frozen spout shimmered in the dying sun, reflecting brilliant shards of coral, peach, amber, and blue. The clone swallowed the last of his dissolved ration cube and considered the scant array of information he had about the planet.

They were sitting on the edge of the Morivian Plateau, looking down below their feet at the sprawling Derelkoos Desert. About twenty kilometers or so away stood the Fountain of Ancients, a site revered as holy by the Klatooinians. The Fountain itself was a geyser of wintrium - a liquid substance native to Klatooine, which reacted to the heat and solidified into a glass-like form at the surface of the desert.

Korbin considered the reflecting rainbow of color that danced and shimmered in the distance. Then, he glanced slyly to his side and paused a moment to consider the handsome features that belonged to the Jedi to his left.

"I think _you're _beautiful," he shrugged and silently appreciated the way the setting sun glinted off of Kian's long dark hair.

A smile quirked the corner of Kian's mouth, but the Jedi continued to direct his attention toward the horizon.

"So you tell me and rather often at that. But, surely you can spare some of your admiration for mere nature."

"I suppose so," Korbin felt himself smiling too, as he glanced casually in the Fountain's general direction. "But, I usually find a deeper appreciation for the view if you're included in it."

Kian laughed; it was a soft sound, not hearty like it usually was with him. There was still a great sadness in him and Korbin stifled a sigh.

_Not exactly the best time to be flirting_, he reprimanded himself, as he shook the last drops of broth out of his canteen cup and twisted around to put it back in his pack.

He winced as a jolt of pain shot through his upper torso, from shoulder to hip. He tried not to begrudge the Klatooinian who had tried to use him like a Togorian scratching post.

"You fill a great emptiness in side of me, Korbin," Kian spoke again, his voice as gentle as his healing hands.

Korbin paused - he could sense that something of great significance was about to be said. There was still a deep sorrow to Kian, but now determination layered over the grief. He had decided something, in their moments of silence.

Not to mention...it was rather startling to hear such blatant words of genuine affection from a Jedi. True, they had whispered forbidden words between them, in the stolen breaths before a kiss, in the throes of passion. But, deeper words of love hadn't been uttered, not yet. Not in moments like this, when the physical need to make up for months apart wasn't fueling their words.

"You keep me from the Dark Side."

Korbin suddenly hung his head and looked down at his dangling feet. He was humbled by Kian's words and didn't know what to say in response. It was a great responsibility to love a Jedi, he was discovering. It was a great honor, too, and an even greater humility.

"Thank you, sir," he finally settled on the only thing he could think to say, since it didn't feel right to remain so silent.

The words felt awkward in his mouth, and the clone captain felt suddenly small and humble. He didn't quite know to return Kian's great honor, except to acknowledge it and to hope like _haran_ that he never betrayed it.

"I hope you know the affect you have on me when you call me 'sir'," Korbin risked a glance just in time to see Kian's usual roguish grin return in full.

It made _him _grin, in response. Desire stirred lazily and he could feel it quicken in Kian as well. The two shared a brief look; Korbin enjoyed the way Kian's eyes had darkened to a shade that matched his forest-colored robe.

"I've been told it's rather sexy," the clone leaned forward to rest his elbows on his thighs; his tone was cocky, confident, just a touch arrogant.

"It _is_," Kian purred in response and the two men laughed.

It was good to be in love, Korbin decided. Kian kept him from the Dark Side, too - the clone was different from the vast majority of his brothers, of all except those in the limited batches created in ultra-secrecy of Timira City, in that he could feel the lure of the Dark Side. He was no different than the Jedi in that - it was this, Korbin's greatest secret, that they shared in common. It was what had brought them together.

"I have a feeling that's what will always keep us together, you and I," Kian read Korbin's thoughts, but the clone was used to that by now.

He didn't have his defenses up - he never did, around _his_ Jedi. There was no need for it - except, of course, for that one thing... That other secret he kept. The one he couldn't ever share. The one that turned his blood cold at night, sometimes, when he was able to hold Kian close and enjoy his warmth.

Korbin looked away from Kian, before the Jedi could read the truth in his eyes. The moment turned solemn and the sun finally disappeared behind the desert's distant edge.

"You still won't share your darkness with me, will you, Korbin?" Kian sighed - it was an old argument for them.

"No, sir," this time, Korbin used the title as a means to keep his distance; this time, there was no note of flirtation to be found in his rough voice.

"Kilia found me in a dream last night," Kian seemed to the change the topic, but Korbin was wary; conversations with Kian had a tendency of doubling back on themselves when the clone least expected it.

"So, that's why you were so restless," Korbin mused, mostly to himself; he shrugged, suddenly abashed, when Kian fixed him with a curious gaze. "You always thrash about when your sister shares a dream with you."

"Ah," Kian just nodded and looked away.

There was a long moment of silence before he spoke again. Korbin finally finished putting away his canteen and turned his face out toward the desert. He considered the first winking stars of the evening, as his lover's voice drifted over the tranquility of the twilight.

"She says that she saw darkness spread out across the galaxy, hidden in the center of a million bright lives. She told me that the darkness would break open and overwhelm us all. That it would destroy the brightness, destroy those lives. That it would destroy _us_."

"And you think this darkness is in _me_?" Korbin didn't dare look anywhere but straight ahead.

"I don't know, Korbin," a hand bridged the distance between them and settled on his forearm.

The captain glanced down at that hand and studied the long, strong fingers that rested so gently against his own green-striped white armor. He had seen that hand heal; he knew how tenderly it could dress a wound, how confidently it could channel the Living Force. He had seen that hand fight; he knew how those fingers could curl like bands of steel around the hilt of a humming lightsaber. He had seen that hand give pleasure; he had felt that unmarred palm press warm against his cheek, moments before a kiss.

Korbin shifted and leaned back; he laid his own hand on top of Kian's. The warmth of his lover's skin seeped through his gloves, through his gauntlet. It touched him, even in that cold, dark place he wouldn't share.

It gave him hope in a place where there was none.

"Promise me one thing?"

Korbin looked up in to earnest emerald eyes.

"If I can," his answer was equally earnest.

"Don't let your darkness overcome you, Korbin. Don't let it destroy you. Don't let yourself be used against me, against the Republic, or against your honor."

_He knows_, Korbin shuttered his thoughts automatically, as his heart suddenly stopped. _He knows about the Order..._

Kian continued talking. If he felt Korbin shut his mind against the Force that flowed between them, then he didn't show it.

"Fidelity is a Corellian's watchword. If the darkness comes, Korbin, please...be faithful to who you are," the Jedi's fingers squeezed his captain's hard forearm. "Be...faithful to love. To the truth. They will make you strong."

"Be faithful to the Republic? To the Jedi...?" Korbin's voice trailed off as he realized the full implications of Kian's words.

He searched his lover's eyes. He couldn't know...the Jedi couldn't possibly know... Korbin took a deep breath. His secret was still safe...but now, at what cost to himself?

"Be faithful to _us_," Kian seemed to suddenly lose the ability to speak in anything louder than a whisper; his eyes were suddenly bright.

Korbin squeezed his hand. He couldn't say no. Didn't _want _to say no. His secrets be damned...

"I want to grow old with you, Korbin."

"That won't take long, Kian," the clone snorted bitterly - at 12 chronological years of age, he was already 24 years old biologically.

He was younger than his lover, but physically, they were practically the same age. In another year... Korbin winced. He'd be older than Kian. And it would only stay that way.

"_I don't care_," the whisper was ragged; Korbin could only sit in awe, meek in the face of his Jedi lover's audacity.

In the face of his _fidelity_.

"I plan to leave the Jedi Order when this War is over."

Kian's admission stunned Korbin to his core. The clone sputtered in the interim silence, but a smile only lit up the Jedi's face and a peace settled over him. He had made up his mind and his heart was sure of what he wanted - Korbin didn't need to be Force Sensitive to feel that.

"I want to fight my way through this War with you. I want to be with you on the other side of all this death, and dying, and blood, and destruction. I want to face the coming darkness with you. I want to triumph over it - _together_."

"You're...not afraid of this...darkness?" Korbin asked carefully, his words almost brittle.

Kian's eyes were brightness, they were hope.

"No."

Korbin felt his own hope rise. He still couldn't speak of the darkness in him. Still couldn't admit the things he knew. Still couldn't share the truth of what he'd been created to do. But...

Against all odds, he had fallen in love with a Jedi. And that Jedi had fallen in love with him.

"Fidelity is a _soldier's _watchword, sir," Korbin leaned toward his lover; their moment was sacred and the clone could feel a great weight lift from his shoulders.

He had his secrets. But, he knew what he would do.

"You have my word, sir. Always faithful."

* * *

_**One Year Later  
**_**Medstar Five**_**, Felucia Orbit Space**_**  
**

He ignored the Chancellor, as he ran through Medstar Five. He defied Order 66, as his armored boots thundered down a deserted hallway, toward the private room where a nurse had told him General Tharen was resting.

She had told him that nearly five minutes earlier. Order 66 had come through just two minutes after he had turned away from her desk. He was now three minutes late; Korbin prayed he wasn't three minutes _too_ late.

He rounded a corner and saw the door - Room 66. The irony wasn't lost on him.

The door was open. He heard shots and suddenly he felt a great emptiness yawn inside of him. Korbin stumbled as something that had been inside of him, alive and aware, was viciously ripped out of him. He lost his breath and for a moment the world was black.

The Dark Side opened up before him as he realized what had just happened, as his mind scrambled to identify the painful nothingness that bled through his soul.

_Kian!_

Kian was gone. His light, extinguished. His life, eradicated.

Korbin practically clawed his way to the door; he stumbled over his own leaden feet and grasped at the wall in an attempt to stay upright. Nausea overwhelmed him and coincided with grief. His heart was gone, his soul raw. He was a wounded beast, dumb and blind and enslaved to a visceral, murderous rage.

The two troopers who stood over his lover's bloody bed were not Force Sensitive. They couldn't feel his anger, his pain, his sudden sorrow. They only saw an ARC captain step into the room; they snapped to attention and Korbin silently crossed the distance between them.

They stepped aside, assuming, no doubt, that he was there to make sure that they had obeyed their order. Korbin stared down at Kian's dead body; his fists clenched at his side, white-knuckled and desperate. The Klatooine sunset flashed through his mind -

_"I think you're beautiful."_

Kian's long hair was unbound and flowed in a frozen pool around his pale face like Klatooinian wintrium. Korbin uncurled his reluctant fingers and reached out to touch a single lock; it slipped through his fingers like it had a hundred times before. But there was no sigh of pleasure to accompany it; Kian could no longer turn his face into his lover's calloused hand; there was no smile of delight or whispered yearning for more.

Korbin's fury burned as hot as the tears that flowed silently down his cheeks, safe behind the anonymity of his helmet. He closed Kian's eyes first; he tried to make his hands as gentle as he remembered the healer's being; he brushed his fingers against the cooling heat of his Jedi's unshaven cheek.

Korbin then lifted his hand toward the door, fingers spread out. He looked down at Kian's face, but the peacefulness he saw on his late lover's face refused to reflect in his seething heart. The door slid shut with a solid bang and he saw the troopers to his right and to his left jump.

They had never seen another clone do _that_. Korbin's lips curled into a snarl as he opened his other hand and reached both out toward the lightsabers that had fallen from his lover's fingers to the floor.

Kian had taught him much in their years together. He had seen Korbin's potential and had encouraged it. They had broken the Jedi rules of celibacy. The brash young Corellian hadn't thought twice of breaking Jedi rules of apprenticeship, either. Korbin had never been formal, his learning had never been truly dedicated - but it was enough to close a door. To wrap his fingers in familiarity around lightsaber hilts without having to bend over to pick them up.

He thumbed them both into a blazing green light. Fury fueled the force of his attack, but it was unsatisfying in its brevity. Weapons and headless bodies clattered to the floor as Korbin made short work of his lover's executioners.

He was empty and his fury froze in a hardened core deep within him. He had kept his promise to Kian...

And he had come too late to save him.

Korbin fell to his knees. The lightsabers clattered, forgotten, to the floor. He reached for Kian's lifeless body...

And wept.

* * *

_**Two Years Later  
**_**Pro Victoria**_**, Anobis Orbit Space**_**  
**

Korbin crossed his arms over his black-armored chest. His green stripes were gone; he had sacrificed his identity to the namelessness of the Empire. He hadn't worn green since Medstar Five, since Order 66.

He also hadn't killed a single Jedi, regardless of the fiercesome reputation he had made for himself as a clone assassin-turned-interrogator. And, he wasn't about to start.

He glared mulishly at Commander Appo through the safety of his helmet and tried to figure out a diplomatic way to say "no." Unfortunately, diplomacy had never been Korbin's strong suit and he was coming up short on creative methods of getting out of his current assignment.

Meanwhile, Appo seemed to interpret his silence for obedience.

"...We now know that there's a _Jedi_ on that freighter. The _Daa'sun's Kryst'shun_ is registered to a Lepi by the name of Rowin. Our reports tell us that there is only _one_ known Lepi by that name abroad outside of their native home world and that same Lepi partnered with Jedi Knight Kilia Tharen during the Wars..."

Appo kept talking, but Korbin had stopped listening at "Kilia Tharen". His whole world reeled and something stirred to life deep within in. Something that he had forgotten in his darkness, in his anger, in his hate.

He'd known Kilia - Kian's twin sister - was alive. The Wanted Lists had told him that much since the aftermath of Order 66. But, he had long ago given up hope of finding her. She had disappeared into the ether; he had assumed with the help of the Lepi, Rowin. He remembered Kian's tales about her - the Lepi had Bonded to her and the two were inseparable as a result.

He'd tried hunting down the Lepi, but like most of his species, the biped space-rabbit was a wily pursuit. A year after Order 66, Korbin had exhausted the trail and frustrated by dead ends and near-misses, he gave up the chase. He turned his attention and talents to other things - to meting out what grim justice he could on deserters and rogues who had participated in the Order. He seethed in anger and resentment; he had plotted quietly for months on a plan to take down Appo and his star destroyer from the inside.

Appo, who he blamed for destroying the bulk of the Jedi Order. For burning down the Temple at Coruscant. For leading the unjustified slaughtering of innocents.

But, now...

Kilia was in his grasp - in _Appo's_ grasp. Korbin blinked at the colored holo-projector that the commander had initiated. Kian's deep green eyes stared back from a different face, from a female face.

Their smile was the same. Korbin's heart ached.

_"...I want to face the coming darkness with you. I want to triumph over it - together."_

Kian's voice echoed in his ears. Korbin clenched his fists.

Kilia was alive and she was in Appo's cross hairs. They had already captured two from the _Daa'sun's Kryst'shun_ - a clone deserter named Boil and a Pantoran scientist by the name of Chiyou Lyang.

Korbin would _not _allow Kilia to become Appo's next acquisition. His next victim.

_"You're...not afraid of this...darkness?"_

Korbin hadn't grown afraid of the dark, but he had grown accustomed to it. He had reveled in it, in the depths of his still-bleeding heart. He still felt the ache of Kian's loss resonate through his flesh, through his marrow, through his soul.

He stared at Kilia's holo-picture and studied the look of hope that been captured in her eyes. It was the same as the hope he had seen burning bright in Kian's face, in that Klatooinian twilight.

_"If the darkness comes, Korbin, please...be faithful to who you are."_

Korbin clenched his fists.

"Do you want me to find her, Commander?" he didn't know if he had just cut Appo off; he didn't care.

"I want you to do more than _find_ her, Captain. I want you to _kill_ her."

"Yes, sir," Korbin's voice was toneless, but his heart rebelled.  
_  
"Be...faithful to love. To the truth. They will make you strong."_

He could never kill Kilia Tharen, flesh and blood of the man he still loved.

But, he could kill those who hunted her with him - he _would_ kill Appo, Bly. Every clone on the ship. He would finally have the courage to do more than lurk in the darkness and seek his revenge.

He would be faithful.

He would hunt Kian's sister down; he would find her; he would throw his lot in with her, with her crew.

And he would show them how to be faithful, too.

He would teach them how to rebel, so that they were hunted no more.

* * *

**Author's Note:** _**Korbin** is an Original Character - I've been inspired by the writing of the lovely **laloga** and decided to try my hand at an original clone character (which I haven't done so far). For those of you reading **A Thousand Suns: Rebellion**, Korbin is about to become a major character. Yes, by the way, he's Force Sensitive - I did some research on **clone assassins** and decided to play with the idea a bit. After all...if you've created a whole super-secret-squirrel group of clones to specifically fight/hunt down Jedi after Order 66...it makes sense to me that they'd be Force Sensitive. I also decided that such a group of clones might be aware of things that their other brothers would not necessarily realize - such as Order 66 - which is why Korbin knows about it and wrestles with it._

_Is it canon? Heck no. Not by a long shot. But, it's not excatly "not" canon, either. This is one of those gray areas where I decided to exercise some creative liscence. That, and Korbin wouldn't leave me alone. ._

_So many people have reviewed this while it's been on hiatus and have encouraged me during the time that I wasn't writing. Much love to all of you...thank you for your support, your awesome reviews, and your patience. :) I couldn't do it without each and every one of you!_

_Love it? Like it? Hate it? Lemme know...!_


	5. Chivalry1

**Dedication: **_To **Elorrra87**. I never forgot your request, m'dear. :) Here's your Chopper story, at long last!  
_

**The Knightly Virtues: _Chivalry_**

**In which a Hapan duchess accepts scars on Chopper's behalf.**

* * *

_"...I've met with many a gentle knight / That gave me such a fill, / But never before with a courteous knight / That gave me all my will."_

**"King Henry"**

**Steeleye Span**

* * *

_Appo pushed her forward through the galley hatch and Ylli had just enough time to feel thankful that at least her hair wasn't being pulled any more, before her knees hit the hard deck underneath them. The former Hapan duchess yelped in mingled surprise and pain; her momentum carried her forward, as well, and it was only by twisting herself desperately to her side, that she avoided landing face-first all together._

_And so she lay, on the unfamiliar deck, between two unfamiliar men - one of whom had just tried, fifteen minutes earlier, to strip her naked. Tears of frustration and fear pricked at the corners of Ylli's eyes, but the young woman was determined not to show any weakness in front of her mocking captors. She blinked rapidly and tried to shoot her best glare to the figures looming above her._

_She also tried to ignore the fact that she was dressed in barely anything except her underclothes and a very thin white shift. A very thin white shift that was currently bunched up to her thighs and falling off of her shoulder. Ylli lifted her bruised chin and raised her expressive sea-green eyes defiantly._

_She was Hapan nobility, a daughter of a proud matriarchal society. She would not be cowed by mere men._

_She was, however, fully capable of being repulsed. Ylli felt her eyes widen in undisguised horror as she met the gaze of a badly scarred face and two mis-matched eyes. She had never seen another sentient so disfigured; her dismay was visceral and largely instinctual. Such blatant flaws were non-existent in the Hapan worlds - a man with such a face would have never been allowed to live, much less show his face in public._

_She began to shiver against the cold tiles of the galley floor, but her eyes stay riveted on the trooper sitting on a stool up above her. A part of her was fascinated by him, a part of her pitied him - a greater part of her feared him._

_"Sir?" the trooper broke the silence, as he seemed to realize that he was in the presence of his commanding officer._

_He slipped off of his stool and snapped to a rigid attention, but Ylli couldn't help notice that he still gripped a paring knife in his right hand._

Sloppy_, she thought with disdain._

_She eyed him a little more critically, now that his and Appo's attentions were diverted elsewhere. The trooper's armor was clean, but scuffed and dented in some places. He had a potato peeling draped across the top of his left boot and there was a rather earthy sort of smell wafting from him - it wasn't unpleasant, though, as he smelled faintly of growing things. His gloves were off and there was dirt caked into the creases of his knuckles from all of the spuds that he had been peeling - two full buckets stood next to his stool opposite of her, awaiting a second scrub and final rinse._

_Her youngest sister - in the tradition of most minor nobility that did not stand to inherit - had joined the Hapan military as an officer, so Ylli had some awareness of military protocol and punishment. This trooper was the lowest on the totem pole - the scapegoat. The troublemaker. Lazy, no doubt. Incompetent._

_"Kitchen police" - it was a vile and dirty duty that transcended the myriad of differences in the vast array of galactic militaries. It was a universal punishment, given to the lowest of the low, to those who refused to "shape up", to those who refused to conform._

_Even a Hapan duchess knew of "kitchen duty" - if only by virtue of her own sister's stories._

_Appo, however, seemed to overlook the gross breach of protocol displayed by standing at attention with something in one's hand. Ylli was tempted to glance over her shoulder and up at him, but she didn't dare make eye contact with him. She didn't know what game he played by dragging her down to the galley and throwing her at the feet of a disfigured private, but she knew it had to be better than being forced into the commander's bed._

_She chose, instead, to focus on the potato peel on the trooper's boot. A potato peel was safer than Appo's wrath; safer, even, than the frightening yellow-tinted eye of the soldier to whom the boot belonged._

_"Private Chopper, meet Stewardess Ylli D'Ko."_

_Appo reached down, grabbed Ylli underneath her bound arms, and hauled her to her feet. Her shift fell further down her arm and she tried to control the color that flushed high into her cheeks as a rather immodest swath of her upper chest was rudely laid bare. She stared angrily past the trooper, refusing to make eye contact with him; all the same, the young duchess saw his mis-matched eyes flicker wide and drop down, just for a mere second, to note her disheveled appearance._

_It was a mere second too long. As if Appo's manhandling of her earlier hadn't been enough... Ylli merely lifted her chin higher in response to the humiliation that threatened to buckle her knees out from under her._

_"I've made the mistake of thinking that our lovely young prisoner would be grateful enough to accept her place among us -"_

_Ylli bit her lip to keep from snapping back at the sneering commander behind her. She hadn't realized that "gratefulness" had anything to do with submitting to a short life as an Imperial commander's personal whore. Saying so out loud, however, wouldn't improve her current state of affairs, so Ylli did her best to hold her tongue and to try and find the far bulkhead past Private Chopper's head as fascinating as possible._

_"-So I've decided her punishment would be most fitting if meted out by you," Appo concluded his terse proclamation, his tone one of distinct condescension._

_Ylli saw the trooper flinch just slightly and her concentration on the bulkhead was momently interrupted as she glanced at the clone soldier in mild surprise. Confusion, then alarm, flashed openly across the trooper's scarred face and in that one second, she saw past her own fear and recognized the flicker of humanity in his yellow-brown eyes._

_The commander chuckled cruelly behind her and Ylli knew - from a life spent among the veiled threats and hidden intrigue of Hapan nobility - that there was something greater than she could recognize going on beneath the surface of the current interaction. At first, she thought Appo was punishing her. But as she watched the clone in front of her shutter his emotions abruptly in response to the commander's mockery, she realized that Appo was really punishing them both._

_"What do you want me to do with her, sir?"_

_The private's voice was appropriately deferential, but Ylli caught a note of uncertainty in his voice. She didn't dare hope for mercy, though - as Appo declared her sentence, she looked away from the other man's scars and went back to studying the bulkhead beyond him._

_She tried desperately not to cry._

_"If she won't be known as 'the Commander's whore'," Appo put his hand against her back and pushed her firmly forward a second time._

_This time, the trooper broke protocol all together and stepped forward to catch her. The commander didn't seem to care though, as Ylli stumbled into the private's waiting arms. She couldn't help but let one lonely tear escape, as she was abruptly pulled against a white-armored chest._

_"Then let her be known as 'Chopper's whore'."_

_"Sir...?" there was confusion in the trooper's voice - a note of incredulous disbelief._

_"There's only one way to break a woman," Appo's final declaration turned Ylli's blood cold; she heard the hatch open a second time and there was a moment's pause before the commander spoke again._

_His orders were callous and cold._

_"_Use_ her."_

_The hatch closed with a solid thud of finality and the trooper holding her seemed to freeze. Ylli didn't notice his hesitation, as her knees finally buckled underneath her from the weight of an unimaginable despair._

* * *

"Aw, man! This _really _isn't fair!" Gus growled as he threw his cards down onto the table in disgust.

Ylli held her own cards up against her lips and giggled at the clone's abrupt display of exasperation. Jester made a "pffft" sort of sound as he pushed air out through his teeth and dramatically flopped over onto his arms, which were crossed on top of the table. Sketch just chuckled, though his lips quirked into an expression of something akin to pain, and he reached over to pat Jester sympathetically on the shoulder.

"This sucks," Jester lifted one of his hands long enough to glance at his cards; he then groaned and dropped them onto the table in front of his forearms. "Absolutely hopeless."

"We've all made it through three years of the Wars, two years of the Empire...and we're gettin' beat by a _girl_," Punch scrubbed his bare hand over his face and made a funny little noise in the back of his throat.

"Looks like it's up to you, Chopper. Do us proud," Gus glanced hopefully over at his fellow platoon-member, as he leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his armored chest.

"Hmm," Chopper just grunted and scowled at the cards in his hands.

Ylli practically bounced in her seat in an attempt to contain her delight. This was the sixth game she'd won in a row - or, at least, she assumed that this _would _be the sixth game she'd win a row. She glanced over the edge of her cards and gazed innocently at the scraps of flimsi that lay in the middle of the durasteel table.

"What are the stakes again?" she asked, her voice as sweet as Endorian honey.

Jester groaned into his arms and Gus' expression turned sour. Sketch barked out an aborted laugh and pinched the bridge of his nose as he glanced sideways at Ylli.

"Since you feel the need to rub it in, _princess_, it's three weeks of peeling vegetables, two weeks of swabbing the galley deck, a month of trash duty, _two_ months of extra watch, and a week of 'evasive maneuvers'."

"That last part doesn't sound so bad," Chopper mumbled from behind his cards.

The scars on the side of his shaved skull were pulled taunt as he wrinkled his forehead in concentration. Jester glanced across the table at him in surprise, Gus rolled his eyes, Sketch looked rather stunned, and Punch just smirked. Ylli felt a strange heat - a blush? - creep up into her cheeks at the scarred trooper's boldly stated words.

Most everyone at the table would have let Chopper's half-attentive comment slide, for one reason or another. Ylli stared hard at her own cards and wasn't sure of what to say herself, so she remained silent out of sheer amazement. Jester, however, did _not._

"You just want to get your shoulders rubbed again and listen to a children's story," the designated clown of the group rolled his eyes theatrically, but his twinkling eyes gave away his teasing intentions.

"Huh?" Chopper glanced up from his cards and met Jester's curling smirk with a distracted frown.

Silence reigned over the table for several long moments before Jester cleared his throat and shifted slightly in his seat.

"Nothin', Chopper. Just finish the game," he waved a dismissive hand toward his brother's fan of cards.

Once Chopper's attention returned to safer pursuits, Jester slid a sly and knowing glance over in Ylli's direction.

She peered over her own cards, wide-eyed, first at Jester, then at Chopper, then back at Jester. The young Hapan woman could feel the tips of her ears tinge the faintest shade of pink as the jovial clone winked at her. Oh, what she wouldn't have given for a tall glass of Corvala Gold right then! Something strong and sweet, to distract her – or, perhaps, to lend her a little liquid courage so she could tell Jester to mind his own business. She glanced – almost guiltily – back at Chopper and tried not to be too obvious about her sudden interest in him.

He really was quite handsome, when one looked past the scars and the eye. Or, perhaps she was growing used to them; perhaps he was_ becoming_ handsome _because _of them. Or, perhaps he was handsome for reasons that had nothing to do with his physical appearance.

_That_ was a new thought for the ex-Hapan duchess. Her matriarchal society revolved around external appearances; they were an entire race that held themselves in high esteem for having been specifically _bred_ for beauty. Both men and women of the Hapan worlds were considered exquisite by most sentient accounts – a man of Chopper's brutal visage and awkward carriage was non-existent within the many worlds of the Consortium.

Being of even minor nobility, Ylli had met her fair share of suitable and handsome young suitors. Young men of the finest physical quality had been paraded before her since her débutante ball at the age of fifteen; if she hadn't rebelled against the social order of her own matriarchal class, she could have had any man within her mother's region that she had so desired.

And yet...

Never had she met a man more gentle, more considerate, more _chivalrous_ than Chopper. Even his motley collection of brothers paled in comparison to him – at least, in _her_ mind. They had all banded together to save her, of course. But it was Chopper who had brought them all together for a common cause; it had been Chopper who had stood stalwartly between her and the wrath of Commander Appo.

It was Chopper who had defied the Commander's order. It was Chopper who had dared to treat her with dignity, instead of using her as a cheap pleasure slave.

Ylli hid a shy smile behind her cards as the clone who currently held her attention – and quite a growing amount of her affection – threw his cards down on the table.

"Full house," he announced, his usually clipped tone slightly tinged with a note of triumph.

_Well_...

The young Hapan said nothing as she lay her cards demurely down in front of her. She, too, had a full house.

"It's a tie!" Sketch crowed, his chair screeching abruptly against the floor as he bounced forward in his seat and slapped the table in his enthusiasm.

Chopper's expression turned sour and Ylli bit back a laugh.

"Another round?" her blue eyes danced mischievously and Chopper's scowl met her barely contained mirth with a grim determination.

"Only if Punch deals," he shoved his cards toward his duly-named brother and kept a careful eye on Ylli as she did the same. "He's the only honest one here."

**To Be Continued**

* * *

**Author's Note:** _Unlike "Generosity" (which will be getting a major edit in the coming week or two), most of "Chivalry" is already written. This is proving to be one of the longer "Virtues", however - so at the encouragement of the lovely **laloga**, I'm taking pity on you, my dear readers, and cutting the story up into three sections. Here, obviously, is section one. It's not much...but it sets the stage for coming awesomeness (hopefully that word will apply, LOL)._

_Also, as a head's up...to those of you who loved **Korbin** in "Fidelity"... He's about to make an appearance here in "Chivalry" as well. ;-) This will be dark, angsty, anti-hero Korbin, though...so you have been warned!_

_Because of up-coming chapters in **ATS:Rebellion**, I'm going back through "Truth", "Generosity", and "Courage" and editing minor (and not-so-minor) details. I've already edited "Truth" - instead of being with a Zeltron singer, Fox is now with someone slightly different (be sure to go and have a look!). I was going to edit "Courage"...but the only change I was going to make was Sheresh's job within the Cuy'val Dar (I'm toying with the idea of making her a medic instead of a blacksmith/armorer...but I haven't decided just yet. Input is definitely welcome!) "Generosity" will have the greatest change made to it; I will be shortening it to a one-shot, instead of a chapter-arc like "Chivalry". I'll be sure to let you all know when those changes take affect._

_Warmest thanks and hugs to **Admiral Daala**, **Kiana Tavers-Mereel**, **laloga** (who reviewed me twice! *hugs*), **Moondoe**, **Queen**, and **LongLiveTheClones. **You guys are amazing; thank you, always, for your continued support and awesome reviews!_

_Love it? Like it? Hate it? Lemme know...!_


	6. Chivalry2

**Dedication: **_To **Elorrra87**. I never forgot your request, m'dear. :) Here's your Chopper story, at long last!_

**Warning:** _In case no one's noticed yet...this is a rather rough story and this is a particularly rough chapter. If suggested bodily harm/violence bothers you, I'd skip this entire trilogy (this being part two of an intended three). Also, I promise that nothing - suggested or otherwise - is frivolous. This chapter does a lot to set up for Part Three; by the conclusion of this story-arc, even the violent bits ought to make sense. So, even if this isn't your thing, hang in there. It gets better at the end. :) Just keep in mind that this is a "Beauty and the Beast" type story, in the spirit of the non-Disney, original versions. Its subject matter can be a little brutal (but, still T-rated).  
_

**The Knightly Virtues: _Chivalry_**

**In which a Hapan duchess accepts scars on Chopper's behalf.**

* * *

_"Some say that the age of chivalry is past, that the spirit of romance is dead. The age of chivalry is never past, so long as there is a wrong left unredressed on earth."_

**Charles Kingsley**

* * *

_Ylli hid behind one of the miniature trash compactors in the corner of the _Pro Victoria'_s massive galley and tried desperately _not_ to cry. She'd been in the custody of Private Chopper for nearly a week and his behavior had both baffled and frightened her. He hadn't once touched her, except to keep her from falling to the floor a second time when Appo had shoved her at him. In fact, the scarred storm trooper seemed almost desperate to keep as much distance between him and her as was possible in a space as confined as a star destroyer's main galley._

_Reason dictated that Ylli find some amount of relief in Chopper's avoidance tactics, but as the days had slipped by, the Hapan duchess found her self-resilience wearing thin. The storm trooper certainly used her, but not in the manner in which Appo had implied- nor, in the manner in which Ylli was expecting. Instead of raping her, Chopper promptly put her to _work_. So far, in five days, she had done more manual labor that she had done in the entire course of her life._

_She had peeled potatoes and a host of other various root vegetables. She had taken orders from a very bossy maintenance droid, while scrubbing caked grease off of the bottom of cast iron pans. She had "swabbed" the smooth galley deck at least a dozen times. She had burnt the caf intended for the officers' mess. She had cleaned durasteel counter tops until they shone like the top of a storm trooper's inspection-ready boot._

_She had worked like a common slave and her body rebelled. After five days of heavy chores from reveille to taps, her arms and shoulders burned with exhaustion. Her lower back ached; her muscles were not used to so much bending, moving, and heavy lifting. Her legs hurt from scrambling up and down ladder-wells between decks, as Chopper sent her on a variety of random errands._

_The worst, though, were her hands. They were red and swollen, unaccustomed to the rough splinters in the mop handle she'd been forced to use for several days straight. Her skin was cracking painfully from the ammonia in the cleaning solution the maintenance droid insisted that she use on the pots, pans, and dishes. And now, while she had been hauling heavy bags of trash to the compactors, she'd slipped and cut the heel of her palm against something sharp that had been sticking through one bag's knotted top._

_All of this together had conspired to weaken her defenses and to pave the way for finally giving in to her fear and to her despair. She hadn't been able to figure out why Chopper hadn't tried to make any advances on her and over the last few days, Ylli had begun to suspect that he was trying to run her ragged on purpose. She nearly had herself convinced that he had heard what she had done to Appo - that he had heard about her biting him - and that Chopper was forcing her to work relentlessly, just so she wouldn't be strong enough to fight back in a similar fashion when he finally decided to have his way with her._

_Ylli knew that the storm trooper saw the way she looked at him - or, rather, at the way she tried _not_ to look at him. His face frightened her. Though she had to wonder what frightened her more - his mis-matched yellow eye, the scars that arched across the right side of his face, or the orders that Appo had given him._

_It never occurred to her that Chopper wouldn't obey his commanding officer's orders. She'd heard stories about the clones in her brief travels. She'd heard whispers about Order 66, about how a million cloned men had been trained to open fire on their Jedi commanders like so many programmed droids. She was at Chopper's mercy and Ylli knew, with every ounce of her being, that it was only a matter of time before the disfigured storm trooper made his move._

_She sat with her back against the bulkhead and drew her legs up to her chest. She wrapped her arms around her knees and bowed her head into the fold of her arms. Her slender body was wracked with dramatic sobs that she managed to keep fairly hushed. She hid and tried desperately to find some outlet for her tears, for her fear, for her anxiety, for her panic. If Chopper was to find her and make his move, Ylli knew she'd be unable to fight back._

_She was simply too beaten, too run down. There would be no glorious fight, no last-ditch effort. No biting._

_Her defenses were crumbling and she could only pray that he wouldn't come looking for her. Not now. Not while she was crying._

_Footsteps echoed against the bulkhead; fresh panic clawed up her throat and Ylli lifted her head in instinctual response. Her tears continued to fall, but they fell unheeded. Her eyes grew wide and she let go of her legs in a foolhardy attempt to scramble away from the white-armored figure approaching at a steady pace. Her back only met the wall and she stifled a strangled cry of despair._

_Chopper stopped just shy of the trash compactor she was hiding against. His hands rose up from his sides to grasp at the buckle of his belt; Ylli began to shiver at the sight of him clicking open the band of armor around his waist. She wanted to fight and her body tensed for the worst, but she knew in her sinking, heavy heart, that her struggle would be half-hearted at best. The fight within her was waning._

_She watched through teary lashes as Chopper frowned. That pulled the scars on the side of his face taunt and only added to the harrowing deformity of his appearance. He didn't seem to be in any rush to descend upon her, however. Ylli watched with a detached sense of bewilderment, as he swiveled his hips abruptly from side to side, slid his belt along his waist a few inches toward the left, and then buckled it back up. The trooper readjusted his gig line and then hooked his thumbs into the armored loops on each side of his hips._

_Ylli barely dared to look up from his belt and meet his mis-matched eyes. She forced herself to do so, though, and what she saw in his face surprised her._

_He looked...concerned. Almost...puzzled._

_"You've been crying," it was a statement, but Chopper's rough voice lilted a little bit at the end, as if it was meant to be more of a question._

_Ylli only sniffled and wiped the back of one of her cracked and aching hands roughly across her eyes. She tried to dash away the tears, but before she quite knew what was happening, Chopper had taken a few steps forward and had leaned into her personal space._

_The duchess gasped and lashed out with her foot - the instinct to fight was a hard one to control, even when she knew that she should save her energy to struggle when it actually counted. Her barely slippered foot was a paltry defense against the hard armor of his greaves. She only managed to stub her big toe and she bit her lip in an attempt to keep from crying out._

_Chopper's eyes fixated momentarily on her lips and Ylli could feel an answering heat rise up in her cheeks. He was close enough to her that she could feel his breath against her hair. She shrank away from him as much as she could, but there was no where else she could go, hemmed in as she was by the wall, the trash compactor, and his broad-shouldered girth._

_"Your hands are bleeding."_

_It took a few seconds for the concern in his voice to override her instinctual defenses. Ylli could only blink speechlessly at him, as he reached down and took her hands in his._

_His gentleness surprised her, as did the contrast of his rougher skin against hers. She watched, dumbstruck, as he turned her hands over once and then twice, and gingerly touched her bleeding palm with his thumb in an attempt to ascertain the extent of her injury. He frowned, his scars bunching up again, and Ylli trembled underneath his shadow._

_"Hey, Jester!" Chopper turned his head and startled Ylli by shouting toward their left._

_She jumped, her hands still held firmly in his. Her movement brought his attention back briefly to her; his face remained impassive and stern, but the lines around his eyes mellowed for a moment as he gently squeezed her fingers._

_"Sorry, princess," he murmured._

_"Yeah? Whatcha' need, Chops?"_

_Ylli's eyes grew even wider as she saw a second storm trooper appear around the durasteel corner of the back galley. She hadn't seen another trooper in the kitchens since she'd been thrown down at Chopper's feet; she began to tremble again, her fear now doubled._

_As if one storm trooper to fight off wasn't enough..._

_Despair gripped her heart in a vise colder than all of Orto Plutonia. She had never been trained in the combat arts like her sister, having been groomed instead for the politics, intrigue, and verbal backstabbing that was any elder daughter's birthright. Even at her strongest, she could have never fought off two Imperial storm troopers in the prime of their youth._

_She rapidly blinked back the tears. She wouldn't give them the satisfaction of seeing her cry - not a second time, at least._

_"Bring me some of that salve I keep around," Chopper shifted his weight and took a knee on the deck in front of her, as he tossed a gravely-voiced command over his shoulder at the one he'd identified as "Jester"._

_"Sure," Jester paused a moment, his own dark eyes roving over the duchess' form with what she interpreted as undisguised interest. "Where do you usually keep it?"_

_"There's some in the medkit to the left of the galley sinks," Chopper paused a moment to consider. "Might as well bring me the whole 'kit. I'll need the bandages in it, too."_

_"You got it," Jester disappeared around the corner without any further ado, leaving Ylli alone with her captor for a second time._

_"Guess I've run you ragged, huh?" Chopper spoke again after a long moment; Ylli thought it curious that he kept his eyes down and talked to her hands, instead of to her face._

_She tried to pull her hands out of his grip, but he held fast. He sighed a bit and only then did he glance up to look her briefly in the eye._

_"You've gotta' trust me. I'm just tryin' to help."_

_"I don't need your help, 'trooper," Ylli's words were crisp despite her tears; some of the edge of her aristocratic upbringing came out in the steadiness of her voice._

_There was no mocking smile, no condescending laugh. Chopper simply lifted his face - his entire face - and looked her dead in the eye._

_"You won't survive this place without my help, princess."_

_The implications of his words made her bristle. Some of her fire returned and flared underneath the skin of her cheeks in a fine blush. Ylli lifted her chin imperiously and tried her best to look down her nose at him - he was, after all, 'just a man'._

_"I am not a 'princess' -" she would have continued, but Chopper had the audacity to cut her off before she could even begin._

_"You're as close to a princess as I'll ever get."_

_His eyes lingered briefly over the mess of golden curls that framed her face. She had tried taming her unruly locks into something of a bun, but in the humidity of the galley nearly every ringlet had escaped. Ylli tried to reach up and push her hair out of her face, suddenly self-conscious by the strangely wistful look that crossed his face. But, his hands continued to hold hers captive._

_His tone was quiet, wistful. Some Ylli's high-born bluster cooled in the wake of his momentary gentleness._

_He surprised her. He was no Hapan male - deferential, obedient, and respectful. Nor did he act like Appo - arrogant, domineering, and cruel. He spoke to her as an equal, as someone who's lot in life was neither better nor worse than his. He was..._

_Chivalrous, was the only word that would come to mind. Like a mythical knight in an old Hapan teller's tale._

_"I'm a duchess..." she stopped herself this time, suddenly uncertain of just how much she could tell him._

_Chopper rewarded her admission with a faint smile. This, unlike his frown, eased the lines of his scars and even as faint as it was, the smile made him seem younger somehow. He was almost handsome, with a glimmer of humor dancing along the edge of his lips._

_"Punch hacked into the Commander's file on you. I took the liberty of reading it. I know who you are, who you used to be...where you've been. Who's after you. I hate to break it to you, princess," his smile faded and Ylli was almost sorry to see it go. "But you need all the help you can get."_

_"Speaking of helping her," Jester's voice interjected before Ylli could think of any suitable come-back for Chopper's blunt truth. "We need to come up with a system better than the one you've got going, Chops. She's going to burn out before too long."_

_"A little hard work never hurt anyone," Chopper rolled his shoulders underneath his armor; he let go of one of Ylli's hands as he reached for the small bottle Jester held out toward him._

_The young duchess stared in silent amazement at the two men. Their faces were identical - after all, they were genetic clones of one another - but they were nothing like she would have expected of identical men._

_Chopper kept his head completely shaved and he was easily set apart by the scars cutting across his right cheek and jaw. Both men had the same facial structure, the same skin-tone, the same light-brown eyes. But, Jester had a full head of hair, neatly trimmed along the sides and along the top; he had styled sideburns, trimmed into two separate sections on each side, and a patch of facial hair in the cleft of his chin. They spoke slightly different, too - Chopper's voice was rough, as if he wasn't used to using it all that much and as if speaking at all was a bit of an effort. Jester spoke with a smoother accent; the inflection of his vowels was slightly different than Chopper's and he spoke as a man who didn't have to think twice about shaping his words._

_"Yeah...but isn't she nobility? I don't think 'hard work' is in her profile description," Jester rubbed one his hands across his chin as he leaned curiously over Chopper's shoulder._

_"You're blocking my light," the bald trooper grumbled and Jester pulled back immediately._

_There was silence for a few minutes as Chopper slowly opened the bottle that he'd been given. A light, soothing scent filled the air between them - it smelled a bit like bacta, but not quite so clinical. The light green, almost-translucent salve that the trooper squirted into the palm of his hand smelled faintly of plants and earth. Ylli watched in absolute amazement as Chopper lightly rubbed the ointment into her swollen hands._

_It stung at first, but as it settled into the creases of her work-raw palms, a pleasant tingling soothed the worst of her pain. Chopper worked efficiently, but his touch was surprisingly tender - Ylli found herself re-evaluating his intentions._

_These were _not_ the actions of a man who intended to rape her._

_"She'll get used to the work," Chopper glanced up at her, as if to apologize for talking about her in the third person as if she wasn't present. "Given the circumstances, there aren't really any other options."_

_"At some point, though, Appo's gonna' come down here. Or, he'll send his kriffin' strill of a henchman down to check up on your 'progress'. Either one is bound to notice that she doesn't smell like you or that she hasn't been roughed up...so to speak."_

_"You, Punch, Gus, and Sketch said you'd help me," Chopper glanced over toward the medkit in Jester's hand and jerked his chin toward it._

_Jester reacted instantly and Ylli was absolutely fascinated by the nearly instinctive communication that passed silently between the two clones. The second trooper opened the medkit, pulled out a roll of bandages, and handed it toward Chopper - never once skipping a beat or pausing for a breath._

_"Yeah, we'll help you. Punch pointed out that no one can enter the aft deck without passing that stupid p-way watch they set up just for us. He thought we should set up some sort of comm system, so we can all know when Appo, Bly, or Korbin start making their way toward this side of the deck."_

_"Keep talking," Chopper began wrapping Ylli's right hand with as much care as he had used when spreading the salve over her wounds._

_"Well...I don't have much beyond that, I have to admit," Jester shrugged a bit and eyed Ylli almost thoughtfully._

_She returned his look with a wary stare of her own. These were strange men and their intentions were still suspect, regardless of their current words and actions._

_"A comm system to monitor the Commanders and the Captain would be an excellent idea," Chopper nodded slowly and paused just long enough to glance up from Ylli's hand. "Hand me some of that adhesive stuff, will you?"_

_Jester complied without a word; he reached into the medkit and pulled out a roll of white medical tape. Without a single pause, the trooper measured out an appropriate length and tore it off with his teeth. He then handed it to Chopper, who wrapped the length around Ylli's hand to secure her bandage._

_"Can Punch do it?" Chopper moved to Ylli's other hand and began bandaging it with the same meticulous movements as he had exhibited all along._

_"Can Punch do what?" Jester frowned for a moment, thrown off by Chopper's abrupt return to the conversation._

_"Can Punch set up a comm system? Through our helmets, I assume? One that won't be ferreted it out by the Imps?"_

_Ylli glanced from Jester to Chopper, nonplussed._

They talk as if they aren't Imperials themselves_, she marveled._

_She was then left to wonder to what Jester and Chopper pledged their loyalties to, if not to the Empire._

A question for another day_, the young duchess resolved, as the conversation between the two storm troopers continued smoothly despite her inner musings._

_"That'd be a question for Punch, but he's the comm whiz. He doesn't usually make suggestions unless he thinks he can make 'em happen," Jester shrugged._

_"True," Chopper gave a curt nod, his attention still partially held by the wrapping of Ylli's hand._

_There was silence for a few lingering seconds. Jester seemed content to crouch down at Chopper's side and watch his fellow trooper work. Chopper seemed completely absorbed in his humanitarian aid. And Ylli was enthralled by them both, uncertain of what to say or even, if she had anything to say at all._

_They were both...novel...men. Especially when considered against the likes of Appo. These two did not paw, they did not pant, they did not pursue. If anything, they treated her as something to be protected. This was certainly not the first time in Ylli's life when she had been in a position to be protected by others. She had been born to nobility, after all; even minor nobility in the Consortium was subject to the political intrigue and assassinations that plagued the whole of their matriarchal society._

_But, this was the first time she had ever been protected by _men_. By the what was – to her culture – the weaker sex. A part of her was touched – especially by Chopper, who took such care in wrapping up her hands. But, a larger part of her was wary, uncertain, dubious. Surely, men were not up to the task that they were currently discussing. Surely, two mere men were not sufficient to protect her against a whole star destroyer full of power-hungry superiors._

_Though, she reasoned after a moment, as Chopper wrapped another length of medical tape around her freshly bandaged hand, they were pitting their wits against other men. Surely, in such case, the odds were even._

_"So, what do we do when Appo, or Bly, or Korbin_ do_ come around?" Chopper picked up both of Ylli's wrapped hands and looked them over one last time. "Because they will. Korbin especially. Appo always makes him do his dirty work. And I don't know if you've noticed, but Korbin is eerie good. It'd almost be easier to pull a fast one on a Jedi."_

_"Sketch had a few ideas about how to...ah...make it seem like we were...ah...well...you know..." Jester glanced shyly at Ylli, blushed, and then stammered in obvious embarrassment._

_"To make it look like we're sleeping with her?" Chopper, however, was brutally direct and completely unperturbed by the subject matter._

_"Yeah," Jester managed a weak and slightly apologetic smile; it looked to Ylli almost like a grimace. "Well...anyway...Sketch thought that if we let her sleep in some of our old fatigues – you know, the ones we all thought Gus was crazy for convincing us to keep? From the Wars? - that it might do a passing job of making her smell like us."_

_"And when was the last time we wore those? It's a good idea – but she'd end up smelling more like the bottom of our footlockers," Chopper quirked a skeptical eyebrow as he finally let go of Ylli's hands._

_He rocked back on his heels and met her eyes. Ylli noted absently that his one good eye was the color of a finely aged Hapan honey wine. She thought of home and her heart twisted. She suddenly couldn't keep eye contact with Chopper and she glanced down at her lap. Only then, did the trooper speak; his voice shifted toward the left, as he addressed Jester yet again._

_"Have her sleep in our racks, with our blankets and pillows. One of us almost always stands a full night watch; she can sleep in the bed of whoever's on duty that night. That should be enough to throw off any scent. And that should make her smell a bit like us and us a bit like her."_

_"I can't even believe we have to discuss this," Jester groaned and scrubbed a hand over his face._

_Ylli glanced at the second trooper and met his eyes. They, too, reminded her of honey wine and home, but being reminded a second time took some of the sting out of the memory. She had no choice being where she was; she had no choice in the circumstances that had befallen her. She had gone from a duchess, to an ex-patriot on the run, to a flight stewardess, to a prisoner in just the span of several standard months. She had gone from knowingly defying the order of her own matriarch, to unknowingly defying the order of the Galactic Empire. She had challenged her own mother and aunts, and she had smuggled two deserters in the hull of her interplanetary passenger shuttle._

_"A rebel", her mother had called her. And now she had paid the price of all rebels – prison, torment, and danger._

_And still...there were these two men, possibly more, who were willing to protect to her. To comfort her. They were aiding an enemy, a prisoner. They..._

_Could die, if they were caught. Ylli blinked in shock at the sudden revelation. Suddenly, she saw the two troopers in a different light. One she couldn't explain or yet describe – but, suddenly, they were more than just mere men._

_They were _honorable_ men._

_"...We need to figure out some way of roughing her up, too, you know. If she doesn't have bruises..." Ylli focused back on the conversation just in time to listen to Jester's voice trail off into absolute uncertainty._

_"Are you suggesting we_ hit_ her?" something in Chopper's voice changed and Ylli turned to her attention to him in surprise._

_His mouth was pulled down in a deep scowl and the look on his scarred face was positively thunderous. Light from the overhead galley lights and shadows from the trash compactors warred across his face; in the shadow, his yellow eye blazed like lightening across a stormy sky. Ylli was transfixed._

_"Well...I...uh..." Jester sputtered; he glanced over at the young Hapan, but then ducked his head, as if ashamed of what he had unwittingly suggested._

_"Can _you_ hit her without any warning, without any provocation? Can _you_ hit her hard enough to leave a bruise? Can _you_ hit her so Appo doesn't leave bruises on her with full intent to harm, to rape and break her?" Chopper's voice was rougher than it had ever been before and he challenged his brother not only in words, but in a suddenly aggressive body language._

_Ylli watched with wide eyes, as the scarred trooper suddenly surged to his feet. He stood over both her and Jester – his back tall, his shoulders braced, his hands clenched. In that moment, all gentleness was lost. He was as grim as Anobian granite; resolute and deadly._

_Jester glanced once from Chopper, to Ylli, and back again. His expression was best described as conflicted._

_"Well..._we_ don't have to hit her...do we?"_

_"It's like you said yourself – she needs to look roughed up. How else is she going to get bruises?" Chopper's voice was still rough, but something about it softened._

_Ylli dared to look up at him, in his face. His scars frightened her, the raw aggression roiling off of him scared her, his mis-matched eyes unnerved her. But, for just that moment, she glimpsed something of Jester's conflict in Chopper's face as well. She saw a glimpse of his humanity – and also of his iron resolve._

_She stared up at him and for just a moment, their eyes met. He meant her no harm – but what the two troopers were suggesting was frightening, to say the least. She blinked back sudden tears and for a moment, she thought about telling them both to jump off into the nearest supernova. But, then Ylli tried to clench her hands and she remembered her bandages. She remembered Chopper's kindness._

_It was then that she remembered something her old nursemaid told her once. Growing up, Ylli had loved stories about princes and princesses, knights and chivalry._

_"Chivalry." It was an old word in the Hapan worlds. It was once a man's word, reclaimed by women and redefined. She had always thought of it as something old-fashioned and quaint. As an ideal long lost in the ages of her peoples' past. Something genteel._

_But, now, she realized that sometimes chivalry was rough, uncouth, unpredictable. Sometimes, chivalry required harsh actions for a greater good. Sometimes, chivalry required an acknowledgment of need and an acceptance of help – in whatever form it chose to take._

_Sometimes, chivalry was a two-way street. These men were willing to hurt her, if it meant sparring her form greater pain – and she could see the conflict that created in them. They were honorable men and strangely gentle men. She stared thoughtfully down at her bandaged hands and resolved then and there that she would find a way to give them her own chivalry in return._

_"I'm very clumsy," she finally spoke up, her accented Basic soft and uncertain._

_Two pairs of eyes turned to stare at her as if she had just grown a second head. Ylli cleared her throat nervously and lifted her chin. It wasn't like her to speak quietly, but she had been silent for so long that she surprised even herself by finally adding her voice to the conversation._

_"I can be very clumsy. Believe me," she suddenly reached down and pulled up the hem of her flimsy shift._

_Both Chopper and Jester looked rather uncomfortable by her sudden show of skin, but Ylli stopped just above her knee. She twisted herself toward the left to show them a large bruise that was slowly darkening across the paler skin of her lower thigh. She glanced up at Chopper just in time to see his eyebrows raise up in surprise._

_"That's impressive," Jester whistled softly; Chopper just shook his head and maintained his silence. "How'd you manage that?"_

_"I got water on the floor yesterday and slipped. I hit my leg on the edge of one of the counters," Ylli explained almost proudly._

_She pulled the hem of her shift back down and rearranged it primly so that she had some semblance of modesty again._

_"I do things like that all the time. Especially when I'm hurried and tired."_

_"Between the odd bruise here and there from running into things...and the work you do here in the kitchens," it was Chopper's turn to speak up; he spoke slowly, as if considering the weight of his words. "Appo and the others shouldn't have any reason to question what's going on here. Much, anyway..." his voice trailed off and he glanced at Jester as if asking silently for affirmation._

_Jester, on the other hand, look immensely relieved that he wouldn't be asked to "bruise" Ylli himself. The other trooper nodded a bit enthusiastically in agreement and ran a hand slowly over the top of his hair. Ylli would learn that he did that when he was nervous or uncertain._

_"Do you think you can do this?" Jester solemnly turned to Ylli. "I mean...it's a lot to ask someone to purposefully hurt themselves, just for show."_

_"It's a lot to ask someone to protect me against their own commander," Ylli countered back without missing a beat._

_"So you'll let us help you, Princess?" Chopper's voice was now as gentle as his hands._

_Ylli looked up at Chopper and found strength in his eyes._

_"Yes," she answered simply; she paused and then repeated her response with greater certainty. "Yes."_

_There was silence and then Chopper's face finally brightened in a genuine smile as he leaned over to offer Ylli his hand. Startled by the affect a smile had on his features, Ylli stared at him for a few seconds. He looked...younger. Handsome, in a way that she could have never found on Hapan._

_She put her hand in his. With barely any effort at all, Chopper pulled back his arm and hauled the former duchess to her feet. When she let go of his hand, he reached out to brush his fingers against one of the errant ringlets that had plastered itself to the curve of her jaw, as if to beg for a silent boon._

_Chopper's gentleness came back, as he let her hair slip through his fingers. Then he seemed to realize what he was doing and his shyness took over; his smile disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared and his hand dropped away to his side._

_Something of a smile still lurked in his eyes, though, as he turned to Jester and raised an eyebrow._

_"We need to work on our 'evasive maneuvers' a little bit. All of us – you, me, the Princess here, Gus, Punch, and Sketch. But, I'd say we have a good start."_

* * *

Everyone gathered around the galley table stared in disbelief at the cards that now lay face-up on the polished durasteel surface. Ylli and Chopper had tied for the _third_ time in a row. Chopper took a moment to scowl disapprovingly at the odds; after a moment of silence, he gestured roughly toward the pile of flimsi chores.

"I'm not playing you again," he leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms mulishly over his unarmored chest. "How do you wanna' divide the losings?"

Ylli tried to hide a smile, but was hugely unsuccessful. Chopper's scowl just grew more dry as he pushed the pile of flimsi toward the Hapan duchess.

"You choose first," he stated simply and crossed his arms again.

Ylli's eyes lingered briefly on his chest; the skin-tight bodysuits that the troopers wore under their armor left _very _little to the imagination. It had been a bit of a revelation to her the first time she realized that under his armor, Chopper was built as impressively as any of the young Hapan suitors that had once flocked to her mother's ballroom floor. It had also given her start to realize at that same time, that Chopper's scars extended far below his neck. The knowledge of his deformity didn't bother her now, but it had startled her then, the first time he had let her touch his skin.

Most things about Chopper startled her at first. Sometimes, the things that startled her weren't even about_ him_ necessarily, but about how different their assumptions toward each other often were.

Like now. He startled her by offering her what was for _his_ culture, a rather old-fashioned courtesy of choosing first. In her own culture, choosing first was her very birthright, her privilege of being born a woman. It startled her, these differences.

It startled her, too, that she no longer took offense to the way he treated her. If anything, she rather liked it. He stood up to her, he challenged her, he treated her as his unequivocal equal. And yet, at times, he deferred to her. Not because he had been trained to do so; not because it was "his place" to do so. But, because he _wanted_ to put her first.

His deference was much different than that of a Hapan man. Chopper's courtesy never went to Ylli's head – it always went instead to her heart.

"Why...thank you," she murmured gently and flashed him a bright smile as she reached for her first piece of flimsi.

There were nine pieces total, so Ylli decided to pick five. She didn't look at what she picked, either, choosing instead to let chance have its way. After picking four, however, she paused just long enough to loosen the blue ribbon Punch had given her a few weeks earlier to hold back her hair. As she was trying to gather back the errant blond curls that had fallen loose from her ponytail, Chopper took advantage of the moment to sweep what was left of the flimsi over to his side of the table.

"You don't have to do five...!" she insisted as she held her hair back with one hand and reached out in protest with the other.

The scarred clone just shook his head and a mulish sort of look settled across his chiseled features.

"I've got evasive maneuvers," he lifted up the piece of flimsi and waved it at her. "Consider us even."

"So give me another one to balance it out. You do enough as it is, Chopper," Ylli insisted; she held out her hand, palm up, and waited expectantly.

Some habits were hard to break. It never occurred to her that he wouldn't actually _listen_ to her.

"Nope," Chopper just shook his head and carefully folded his five pieces of flimsi to tuck into one of his belt pouches.

"Hey!" Gus suddenly sat straight up.

The note of panic in his voice brought everyone up short. Even Chopper turned to the bald clone with one raised eyebrow and a look of concern.

"Sketch," Gus turned abruptly to the artist of the group, who had been idly doodling on a flimsi sketchpad while Ylli and Chopper had been trying to out-play each other. "Weren't you on your way to watch at the start of the game?"

"Uh..." some of the blood suddenly drained out of Sketch's face as he realized the implication of his brother's words. "Yeah..."

He scrambled instantly to his feet, his sketchpad forgotten. Ylli noticed with a detached sort of interest that Sketch had been shading a surprisingly detailed picture of the card game. He had captured her smile and Chopper's scowl at the moment of their tie – Sketch's eye for detail always surprised her.

"'Fek, Sketch," Chopper swore hotly and jerked his thumb toward the galley door. "You better get moving."

"We don't need to get busted for playing cards," Jester immediately reached out a hand and started sweeping cards into a hasty pile. "And you don't need to get busted for not reporting for duty."

"Oh, I'm going to get busted anyway," Sketch grumbled as he grabbed his sketchpad and stuffed it recklessly into one of his belt pouches.

Ylli watched the five clones scramble about with some surprise. It wasn't like any of them to be sloppy – especially not when it came to protecting their illicit attempts at protecting _her_. She remembered Sketch strolling into the galley at the start of the game to get something to eat, announcing his intention to head off to the aft watch. But, then she had said something to him, he had said something back, the game had gotten interesting, and she remembered him sitting down to watch for "five minutes" before heading off.

He had never head off.

"Well, don't get the rest of us busted," Chopper had gotten to his feet at the first sign of trouble and he now grabbed Sketch by the shoulder to steer him toward the door.

The two didn't get two steps before they both froze. Their sudden stop drew everyone's attention...which then drew everyone's attention to the door.

Where Captain Korbin leaned against the doorway, arms folded with an almost arrogant sort of casualness over his armor. His helmet was hooked to his belt and Ylli stared wide-eyed at the Imperial officer. She had only ever seen him briefly and helmeted at that. He had the same face as all the others; he had same eyes. But, the Captain's eyes seemed flat and cold; his face emotionless. He frightened her – more than Chopper ever had.

"Little late to save yourselves, don't you think?" even Korbin's voice was flat and emotionless; he narrowed his eyes just slightly and they reflected the harsh galley light like slabs of umber stone.

"Captain Korbin," Chopper snapped instinctively to attention, but Ylli knew him well enough by now to note the defiant set of his shoulders.

More than any of the others, Chopper was defiant. The others followed his head, but it was always Chopper who stood up to authority. It was always Chopper who took the first blow as the rebel leader.

"Private Chopper," Korbin pushed himself off of the door frame with a lazy roll of his shoulders.

He uncrossed his arms and practically prowled into the back galley room; his feet were oddly quiet against the freshly waxed floors. Ylli felt her blood run cold at the officer's obvious capability for stealth and self-restraint.

She'd heard the others talking about Korbin. They called him "Appo's strill". Once she had asked Chopper what a strill was and his only response was that they were a Mandalorian hunting animal – strong, silent, and deadly. Now, with Korbin slowly circling both Sketch and Chopper, she was reminded of a predator zeroing in on its kill. She shuddered at the thought and her movement earned her the captain's attention.

He stopped and turned his face toward her. They stared at each other for just a moment and in that second, Ylli felt as if all of her secrets had been stripped bare beneath the officer's gaze.

"Playing cards, eh?" Korbin decided to turn his attention toward the table, and he left Chopper and Sketch alone for the moment.

He reached around Jester and snatched a card out of the private's hand. Ylli saw Jester's eyes flash angrily, but he stood at attention and said nothing. Silence reigned and the only sound was the muffled tread of Korbin's feet as he drew closer to her.

"You know...I've noticed some interesting things about your little plaything here, gentlemen," Korbin continued to talk, his voice low and rough.

He stopped just in front of Ylli and she flinched as he reached out toward her. She couldn't lean far away enough from him, though; he grabbed a hold her chin and held her gaze firmly between iron-like fingers.

"She smells a bit like all of you," Korbin leaned over slightly and his nostrils flared as he took a deep breath; Ylli tried to hold her ground, but it was hard not to struggle in his grasp. "But, she never smells like _sex_."

Chopper made a strangled sort of sound, like a laugh that was cut short. Korbin abruptly let go of Ylli and turned his attention back to the scarred trooper. For just a moment, Ylli saw the captain's eyes flash in anger.

"Surprisingly enough, I'm well acquainted with that smell – unlike many of the other fools you've all managed to con," Korbin's voice grew even rougher as he stalked back toward Chopper and Sketch. "I've never seen her with a black eye, or a swollen jaw, or any sort of bruise about her face. Makes me wonder if what bruises she _does_ have, aren't ones she puts on herself by running into knee-knockers or slipping on the ladder-wells."

It was Ylli's turn to freeze, as her heart suddenly thundered to a stop in her chest.

"And I never sense _fear_ in her. Strange thing, don't you think, for a woman who's supposedly being raped? No smell of sex, no customary bruises, no fear – makes a man wonder," Korbin stopped in front of Sketch and slowly crossed his arms again. "And then I walk in on all six of you, playing cards like you're the best of friends. Curious, to say the least."

A heavy pall fell over the room; no one dared to say anything, for fear of incriminating all. Korbin didn't seemed either surprised or upset by the silence; if anything, he seemed to expect it. After a few heavy moments, he stepped out of Sketch's way and jerked his thumb toward the door.

"Get to watch. I'll deal with you later, Private."

"Sir, yes sir," Sketch saluted briskly and moved immediately toward the door.

He paused just long enough to shoot Ylli an apologetic look as he walked by. Her heart went out to him; Sketch looked as if he'd buckle any moment under the weight of his guilt. Ylli resolved that, if they all managed to get out of this current situation, she would have a quiet word with Sketch later.

She didn't fault him for his mistake. They were all naught but human. Chopper had taught her that.

"As for you," Korbin moved into Chopper's space next, his stance a hard one to read. "You're the ring-leader of this little group, aren't you?" the captain paused, but Chopper said nothing. "Care to say something on your behalf?"

"Don't tell the Commander, sir," Chopper surprised Ylli by speaking; he swallowed hard and added after a moment. "Please."

"Please?" Korbin raised a mocking eyebrow. "How polite of you, trooper. I'm almost swayed by your manners."

Ylli watched as Chopper's jaw worked furiously; she could tell by the taunt set of his body that he was aching to lash out at the captain – both physically and verbally. But, he held himself in check, his self-discipline was admirable under the circumstances.

"And what do I get if I don't tell Appo?" Korbin's lips curled upward in a dark smirk.

"Anything you want, sir," Chopper stared resolutely past the captain's shoulder toward the gray bulkhead behind him.

"And if I want her?" Korbin jerked his chin contemptuously toward Ylli.

"I'll fight you, sir," Chopper didn't even pause to think.

Ylli raised a slender hand to her mouth in surprise. No one had ever offered to fight on her behalf before – especially not a man too scarred by Hapan standards to have any hope of having his chivalrous offer accepted.

Korbin, on the other hand, didn't seem impressed.

"I'd kill you, trooper," his tone was matter-of-fact.

"Yes sir," Chopper's voice was equally unimpressed.

Silence fell over them all again and Korbin's eyes swept around the room, from face to face. When his eyes paused to consider her, Ylli once again felt as if her very spirit was being weighed for its worth. She couldn't even breath until he finally turned his attention back to Chopper.

"I'll settle for blood."

"Sir?" Chopper blinked, voicing everyone's sudden confusion.

"I want blood, in exchange for not telling Appo," Korbin's hands moved as he spoke and Ylli's eyes grew wide as he carefully pulled a slender, heavy-looking black club out of a sheath strapped to his right thigh.

Even Chopper seemed transfixed, as Korbin held out one hand and slapped the club loudly into his palm. The sound made Ylli flinch and she saw even Chopper's eyes flutter in response to the thinly veiled promise of violence.

"You won't tell Commander Appo?" Chopper, at least, seemed willing to consider the exchange – much to Ylli's rising horror.

"I won't breath a word, as long as I get a fair trade," Korbin slapped his palm again to underline his request.

In that one moment, Chopper broke protocol and glanced over at Ylli. Her breath caught in her throat as she read his intention in the suddenly grim set of his jaw. So did Korbin.

"Hands on the wall, Private," Korbin gestured roughly toward the bulkhead with his club. "And you better hope you bleed easy."

**To Be Continued**

* * *

**Author's Note:** _Yeaaaaah...I'm kinda' glad you guys got to get a glimpse of who Korbin really is, in "Fidelity." Until the conclusion of the sequel I have planned after **A Thousand Suns: Rebellion, **he plays the role of a "bad guy". Who's really a good guy, mind you. But...yeah...this Not-Nice-Korbin. As was hinted at the end of "Fidelity", he really flirts with the Dark Side at times._

_A big, big thank you to **laloga** who looked over the first half of this chapter and advised me on some tweaking. :) I wrote most of this on a plane from Florida to Colorado, so she was awesome enough to look things over, and let me know what worked and what didn't._ _Thank you!_

_Lots of love and thanks to **laloga**, **Elorrra8787**, **Jess Marylin**, **Kiana Tavers-Mereel**, **Olen jedi ikuisesti, **and **SerendipityAEY**. BTW, **Serendipity**, I'm considering an Obi Wan-centric Virtue, just for you! ;-)_

_And for those of you reading **ATS: Rebellion** - keep an eye out on an update there soon, too. It's one of the great things about travelling by plane - lots of writing time!  
_

_Love it? Like it? Hate it? Lemme know!_


	7. Chivalry3

**Dedication: **_To **Elorrra87**. I never forgot your request, m'dear. :) Here's your Chopper story, at long last!_

**The Knightly Virtues: _Chivalry_**

**In which a Hapan duchess accepts scars on Chopper's behalf.**

* * *

"_The motto of chivalry is also the motto of wisdom; to serve all, but love only one."_

**Honore de Balzac**

* * *

_Ylli surprised herself by how quickly she became accustomed to kissing Chopper. She surprised herself even more by how quickly she came to _enjoy_ kissing him._

_It started out awkwardly enough, as a split-second response to the circumstances that had befallen both of them. Ylli wouldn't have even thought much of it the first time it had happened – after all, she _was_ a Hapan duchess and had been kissed by many men with far more finesse than Chopper currently possessed – except that the clone trooper surprised her by being whole-heartedly enthusiastic about the affair from start to finish._

_The circumstances in which their first kiss happened also contributed to it standing out in Ylli's mind. The day had started out innocently enough – no different than almost four weeks of nearly identical days._

_Ylli had grown accustomed to her peculiar life on board the _Pro Victoria_, in the care of five quietly rebellious storm troopers. Her circumstances had developed a strange, but fairly predictable rhythm – she would sleep in the bed of whoever stood night duty on deck, would wake up early to start preparing breakfast for half of a star destroyer's voracious crew, and would spend nearly twelve standard hours on her feet in an industrial galley with only the help of a few droids and a small handful of harried men._

_By her fourth week on board, Ylli had even managed to assert herself as something of a force to be reckoned with. The galley became her own small realm and she was quite delighted to find that Chopper and his men were not so different from Hapan men after all, in that they were more than willing to do whatever it took to keep her happy. What this usually meant, was that they were quite willing to follow her "suggestions"; in no time at all, she had started to run the galley and everyone in it, organic or not._

_She still put in her fair share of work, however. She still swabbed decks, cleaned off tables, cooked food, washed dishes, and flopped into bed at the end of the night in a vague fog of exhaustion. But, a camaraderie slowly built between her and the men who followed her lead – as she trusted them, so they came to trust her. Ylli soon realized that the clone troopers only had one expectation of others – competency. It didn't take long for her to prove that she was more than capable of keeping a galley running smoothly and more than capable of pulling her fair share of the work._

_The situation she found herself in, would have been almost pleasant, if it hadn't been for the occasional reminder of their oppressors. Appo and Bly were the most predictable; they were also the most likely to come by while Ylli and the others were working. There were two galleys in the _Pro Victoria_ – at least as far as the young Hapan prisoner knew – and the one that fell under Chopper's delegation was strictly for enlisted and lower-level officers. Anyone over the rank of lieutenant was rarely seen; Commander Bly strolled through the deck maybe once every other week; Appo did so even less. When either commander decided to check in on Ylli's status, they usually did so during working hours; Ylli was usually elbows deep in the sink, or scrubbing tables._

_Neither Appo nor Bly seemed surprised to find her working. Bly never said a word; Ylli was always intrigued to find an unexpected compassion in his honey-colored eyes. He would drift quietly through the galley, silent but observant. Sometimes, she wondered what he thought, especially when he saw her working alongside one of the troopers, but Bly never gave voice to his opinions. She would later learn that the laconic commander was involved in his own deception; as a result, he turned a blind eye to any suspicions he might have had about what was going on between her and those who were supposed to be "using" her._

_Appo was far more opinionated, but his commentary was both shallow and harmless. Ylli quickly learned that what Chopper said about his commanding officer was right – Appo was blinded by his own self-importance and completely clueless as a result. She learned to ignore the clone commander when he graced the galley with his presence; as time went on, his visits became more sporadic. She learned, later, that the Commander's attention had been captivated by a far greater prize than a runaway Hapan duchess. Another prisoner had been brought on board – a clone deserter who had once outranked even Appo – whose choice for rebellion sparked the interests of the entire star destroyer and who turned the spotlight away from her._

_With Bly's passive silence and Appo's gradual disinterest, only Captain Korbin was left to contend with. Korbin – known collectively among Chopper's galley-bound squad as "Appo's strill" - came by whenever the whim struck. Unlike either Appo or Bly, there was very little predictability to the former ARC's visitations. Sometimes, for several weeks, he wouldn't show at all. Then he would drop by during an early morning breakfast prep and for a week or two, come around only during working hours. Then he might come by after hours, or between shifts, without any warning whatsoever._

_It was when Korbin first dropped by after hours, that Ylli received her first of many unexpected kisses._

_Dinner clean-up had run late that evening, thanks to a dishwasher that had decided to break down. That left Ylli with far more dishes than she was able to wash by herself; Chopper, who was the most mechanically inclined of his squad, had stayed behind with Ylli to see what he could fix. The trooper was on his back, fiddling with a pipe that ran between the sinks and the dishwasher, when Punch's coded whistle came through the comlink on his arm._

"_Fek!" Chopper reacted instantly to the code and hit his unarmored head on the pipe as a result._

_Ylli, who was standing next to him at the sink, looked down at him, wide-eyed with surprise. She had never seen him caught off guard before; a part of her didn't know whether to be amused by the situation or to be alarmed by the abrupt interruption in their otherwise quiet evening._

_The comlink chirped and whirred again and Chopper hissed through his teeth as he shimmied out from under the sink. He sat on the floor for a moment and rubbed his head; Ylli could already see a small red mark blossoming to life across his left temple._

"_Korbin's heading our way!" Chopper glanced up at her and scowled._

_Ylli just arched a slight eyebrow and shrugged. Korbin put every man on the squad on edge, but she didn't yet understand why the captain bothered them all so much. The former ARC was surly, but he hadn't said or done anything untoward – as of yet. He didn't leer like Appo, for which Ylli was rather thankful; if anything, Korbin was rather like Bly, in his mostly silent prowls about the galley. In fact, the only offense Ylli took to the clone, was the general vibe of creepiness that he seemed to exude at every step. Korbin always carried himself as if he knew more than he let on; while not Force Sensitive in the least, Ylli's female intuition picked up on Something Not Quite Right about the clone captain and it put her ill at ease in his presence._

"_We're working," she waved toward the sink and the dishwasher when Chopper's eyebrows knit across his forehead in a furrow of disapproval. "I don't think we have anything to worry about."_

"_Except that we're _always_ working when he comes by. It's after hours. If he's bothering to come down right now, it's because he's hoping to catch us at something."_

"_I hardly think he can cause trouble for catching us with," Ylli paused and grabbed a plate to wave in Chopper's general direction. "Dirty dishes and backed up pipes!"_

"_Yeah, well..." Chopper grumbled under his breath as he clambered clumsily to his feet; Ylli almost missed what he said in the sound of all his movement, but her ears were sharper than the clone expected. "You weren't exactly sent down here to work."_

_Ylli frowned and turned toward the sink in a bit of a flummox. Since deciding what to do with her, no one had said anything else about why she was with them. There hadn't been any further mention made of Appo's cruel sentence and she had almost reached a point where she had started to forget about it. She had found a place among the men of Chopper's squad – and it was a place built on mutual respect, not lewd injustice._

_Nothing more was said for several long and agonizing moments. Chopper fidgeted behind her, but Ylli kept her attention in front of her, on the dishes in the sink and the soapy water around her wrinkled hands. She could feel her companion's uncertainty however and she could hear him shift uncomfortably from one foot to the other. The young duchess had learned by now that Chopper moved restlessly when he was thinking – he was not the kind of man to sit idle while he tried to make up his mind._

"_I don't want him asking any awkward questions."_

"_Why would he?" Ylli was pointedly unperturbed; she hoped her apparent naiveté wasn't misguided, but she really couldn't understand why Korbin put Chopper so easily on edge._

"_Jester thinks he might be starting to suspect something," was her only explanation._

_She sighed and rolled her eyes at nothing, as she lifted another plate out of the sink and set it carefully in a dish rack to dry._

"_Jester thinks this? Or you?" Ylli was starting to get a feel for Chopper by now – he was a meticulous man and prone to a certain over-cautiousness in very particular things._

_She was beginning to realize that she was one of those "very particular things"._

"_All right, _fine_," Chopper finally moved into her realm of vision; Ylli turned her head just long enough to glance up at him and she tried to give him a reassuring smile. "_I_ think that if he doesn't see some sort of..." he paused and waved his hands wide in a gesture of sudden awkwardness. "Hanky-panky, then he's going to start calling us out."_

"_'Hanky-panky'?" Ylli couldn't help fixating on Chopper's choice of words._

_She looked away from him and tried not to giggle. Her attempt was spectacularly unsuccessful and she lifted a soapy hand to press the back of her arm against her mouth. After another giggle or two, she gathered her composure and lowered her arm long enough to give Chopper a coy side-ways glance and a teasing little smile._

"_What's _that_?"_

_Later, she would come to recognize the look of abrupt intensity that would come over Chopper's face when he decided to kiss her. That first time, though, she had no warning, as he suddenly reached for her and pulled her swiftly against a hard, armored chest._

"_Something like this," he muttered, distracted by his own intentions; his head lowered even as he spoke, but Ylli was completely unprepared for what came next._

_His mouth met hers and her whole body stiffened in shock. He held her by her forearms, his grip a little tighter than she would have once accepted in a suitor. His lips were unscarred, though, and surprisingly soft; they were warm against hers and his own body was taunt with tense uncertainty._

_Ylli's Hapan-bred instincts would have urged her to pull away from his grasp and to slap him for his masculine audacity. But, the circumstances of the last four weeks had gone a long way to changing her immediate reactions to Chopper. He had overcome a great many of her nurtured instincts with his chivalrous actions and with his honest intentions. As his lips pressed uncertainly against hers, Ylli realized that pushing him away would be most unchivalrous on her part – she could sense his earnestness and also something of his vulnerability._

_He kissed like a man who had kissed before, but not often. Ylli wasn't quite able to let down her guard and let her body relax against his, but she opened her mouth a little wider in subtle welcome. She was only partially surprised when Chopper took the cue – she had worked with him in close quarters for nearly a month and she knew just how quickly he could adapt to opportunity._

_What Chopper lacked in technique, he made up for in overwhelming ardor. His tongue touched hers and Ylli suddenly found herself swept up in a haze of unexpected desire. It was, perhaps, the most peculiar first kiss she had ever had, but it was also one of the most passionate._

_For several moments, Ylli's entire world view was narrowed into one unwavering focus. As she moved her tongue tentatively against his, she could taste the Endrolian ground apple juice that he had savored after dinner. She made a soft noise of approval in the back of her throat and eagerly angled her head so that their kiss deepened. The young Hapan duchess secretly loved apples and the taste of it on Chopper's lips only added fuel to her sudden yearning._

_Her slender frame began to quiver – from need, or surprise, or fear of being caught, she couldn't say. But, she felt light-headed, as if Chopper was stealing all of the air from her lungs. Despite the intensity of his kiss, he seemed aware of her body and his hands tightened slightly on her arms as she began to shake beneath his fingers. As if on instinct, Ylli reached up and flattened her hands against the smooth armored plates of his chest; overcome by a desire to touch his skin and frustrated by the inability to do so, her right hand curled instinctively into a fist. She tapped his armor once, twice, with her fist, wordlessly vexed by the barrier between them._

_And still, his tongue twisted and tasted, intent it seemed, on rendering her completely witless. Chopper pulled her closer toward him, but his hands stayed where they were and his armor stayed where it was. They were close – their breath practically fused together between their lips – but in many unspoken ways, Ylli felt as if there was still a whole galaxy between them._

_Bootsteps against the polished galley floor outside of the kitchen echoed dimly in the duchess' ears; it was only with great effort that Ylli remembered what had spurred Chopper on to kiss her in the first place. The trooper appeared to hear the impending arrival of their unwelcome guest as well; he slowly broke the kiss, but not after first dragging his teeth along the curve of her full bottom lip. Ylli wasn't quite sure where he would have learned such a thing – by Hapan standards, it was a bold move, indeed._

_It was an assertive gesture, in her culture; a nonverbal display of sexual possession. It was always a gesture given from a _woman_ to a man_,_ but _never_ the other way around. Ylli was shocked, but she found her knees weakening in response, as he pulled her lip between his teeth and nibbled gently. Even as it happened, she knew that to Chopper it didn't mean quite the same thing. It was a provocative move, but nothing more. All the same, she couldn't help her own reaction, as she finally let her body lean in toward him – and it puzzled her._

_Chopper pulled away from her, however, almost as soon as her body began to touch his. The kiss ended as suddenly as it started and Ylli opened her eyes to a world that confused her. She blinked rapidly a few times and tried to gather her scattered wits; she licked her lips uncertainly and she tasted Endrolian ground apple on her tongue. The young Hapan could feel heat flush into her skin and desire addled any sense she might have had of decorum. Her eyes sought Chopper's scarred face and she could only stare in mute amazement as he glanced toward the kitchen entrance and then back at her._

_For a moment or two, an indescribable smile curled up the edges of his lips. Then, as quickly as the smile came, it disappeared and a harder edge framed the corners of his mouth. The look in his eyes changed from one of playful shyness, to something almost fierce and Ylli felt herself backing instinctively away form Chopper as he began to prowl toward her._

_He had let go of her arms when he had pulled away from their kiss, but Ylli's freedom to move lasted only for a moment. Chopper advanced and she retreated – right into the edge of a durasteel counter. Ylli's eyes grew wide as the tall, broad-shouldered trooper loomed over her; here was not much difference in their height, but in that moment, Chopper carried himself in such a way that Ylli felt as small as a child._

_He slammed both of his large, weathered hands down on the counter on either side of her; the sound echoed throughout the galley and it made the young duchess jump out of sheer reflex. She even squeaked a bit, shocked and more than a little confused by the sudden shift in Chopper's entire demeanor. This was a side of him that she had seen before only in short glimpses, a side of him that normally only surfaced when either of the commanders came around. She wondered, briefly, if this was the side of him that had once wreaked havoc on the battlefield – she had overheard Chopper and the others swapping war stories from time to time, when they thought she wasn't in hearing range. Ylli knew that Chopper had a 'dark side', but it had never once been directed toward _her_._

_The realization that her protector wasn't automatically programmed to his usual chivalry came as a bit of a shock to her. Ylli stared up at him, speechless and wide-eyed; she was completely unprepared to deal with this side of Chopper; it was so unlike the part of him that she had become accustomed to, that she had no immediate reaction, except to freeze like a small animal caught in a predator's trap._

_Then, as Chopper pressed his body unexpectedly against hers, he turned the whole situation on its head. He paused, for just half a second, and _winked_ at her. Ylli could only blink in response, completely lost in a world of confusion and disbelief. She _thought_ she understood what that wink meant – that she had nothing to fear from Chopper and that it was all just an act to throw off Korbin's scent. But, the proximity of his hard armored body and the boldness of his hands – which were now tangled in her thick, curly hair along the base of her neck – unsettled her. The young duchess tried valiantly not to be afraid, but it was hard; a sly wink was _not_ sufficient reassurance, given the circumstances._

"_Relax," he seemed to understand something of her conflict, as he bent his head toward hers for a second time._

_His breath whispered across her cheek and if they weren't so close together, she would have missed what he had said entirely. She smelled apple on his breath and the taste of their kiss lowered the worst of her inhibitions – just enough for her to reach up and press her hands against his chest again. It was hard not to push him away, but she tried desperately to trust him. In the month that she had spent in the galley with him, Chopper hadn't ever once given her so much as an inappropriate_ look_ – Ylli willed herself to believe that his aberrant behavior was all an act for Korbin's sake. She had no reason to believe otherwise, no matter how much the trooper pressed against her was currently unsettling her._

_She thought, for a moment, that he would kiss her again, but the scarred clone's lips merely brushed against the curve of her jaw as he buried his face in her neck. He tugged on her hair gently and Ylli didn't resist as he pulled her head back and bared her throat to his mouth. His kisses were gentle and almost shy – compared to the kiss he had given her earlier, Chopper now seemed almost uncertain, as if he, too, was overwhelmed by his uncharacteristic verve._

_The durasteel counter dug into her lower back, but not horribly so; it was just enough to keep her anchored to reality. Despite her misgivings and her instinctual fear response, Ylli found herself enjoying Chopper's bizarre advances. He was warm and solid, and she hadn't realized just how much she had missed simple human contact. As a virtual slave on board the Imperial vessel, Ylli was surrounded by armor, metal, and military sterility. Hapan women touched – and they touched _often_ – but Ylli had never had reason to think much of it, until the constant contact of her culture was so painfully absent._

_Circumstances, however, had forced her to focus on mere survival; it wasn't until this exact moment, when Chopper pressed her into a counter and gently rubbed the back of her neck with inquisitive fingers, that Ylli realized just how starved she had been for a simple touch. His touch was completely foreign to her – a little too strong, a little too rough, a little too clumsy, a little too _male_ – but she found that she didn't mind the differences so much. She had contact with another sentient, warm-blooded being and she felt her body relaxing in almost guilty pleasure._

_The Hapan prisoner would have willingly stayed like that for as long as Chopper wanted, but a sharp, hard voice broke the moment. Ylli's eyes flew open – when had she closed them? - and focused immediately on the armored figure standing authoritatively by the kitchen hatch._

"_Little public of a place to be taking your whore, don't you think, Trooper?" the captain's words were lewd and Ylli felt something like a blush creep up her neck._

_She wasn't sure if it was a blush of indignation or embarrassment, but she was suddenly very glad to have the entirety of Chopper's broad body to hide behind._

"_Sorry, sir," Chopper took his time in letting Ylli go and gathering himself to attention; there was an insolence in the set of his shoulders that was hard to miss. "Just having some fun."_

"_Well," if Korbin took offense to Chopper's body language, he didn't show it. "I suppose that _is_ what she's here for."_

_Ylli couldn't see the captain's eyes, hidden as they were behind his ubiquitous helmet, but she could feel the disregard he had for the entire situation. She felt her face flushing and this time, she recognized the emotion behind it – anger. Being reduced to nothing much more than a pleasure slave..._

_It was almost enough for her to throw all discretion to the wind and give Korbin a piece of her Hapan mind._

_Almost._

_She took a deep breath and inhaled the scent of Chopper's skin. She had slept in his bed the night before and carried his smell with her the entire day; she hadn't really noticed it, but having him in such close proximity seemed to heighten her awareness of him. It was enough to remind her that she was in a man's world, now; her Hapan nobility had no place here._

_She was a proud woman, from a proud race of matriarchs. But here, on the Imperial _Pro Victoria_, she was simply a prisoner of her circumstances, at the complete mercy of a small group of men who bent the rules so she could maintain some small dignity. She reminded herself – if grudgingly – that she would not undermine their chivalry, by allowing a lesser man to get the better of her._

"_Carry on," Ylli expected Korbin to say more, but the laconic captain seemed satisfied by the display Chopper had given him._

_Without any further ado, the armored officer turned around and walked briskly back out through the galley entrance. Chopper's shoulders dipped down in a sigh of relief, but then he turned around and abruptly buried his face in her neck again._

"_Cho-" Ylli started to say his name in protest, but he lifted both his head and his hand and pressed a finger pointedly against her lips._

_She fell silent and stared at him over the tip of his finger; confusion reigned supreme for a second time and his honey-colored eyes never left hers. Seeing his face calmed the worst of Ylli's reactive fears; she searched his expression for any sign of duplicity and was comforted to find none at all. If anything, his face was as warm and open as it usually was, though there was a somber expression in his eyes that wordlessly warned her to keep quiet._

"_Just a few more minutes," he murmured, his words low and soft against her hair._

_He kissed the top of her head and wrapped his arms around her. Gone was the passion of their earlier kiss, or the unspoken sensuality of his nuzzling. Ylli could sense that he was back to being normal, comfortable Chopper; he held her against his armor, but his touch was back to being nothing more pulse-pounding than that of a friend's._

"_Why?" she dared to whisper back, still confused by the intimate, if non-sexual, contact._

"_Not 'til we get the all clear," Chopper barely moved his lips against the top of her head, but Ylli heard his words all the same._

_She also understood his meaning. Korbin had proven himself to be a sneaky opponent – his training from the Wars had made him light of foot and Ylli had seen him practically melt into the bulkhead shadows without a second's thought. Just because he was no where in sight, didn't mean that he wasn't within hearing distance – or, that he wasn't somewhere else, still watching on his own terms._

_So, Ylli allowed herself to settle into the comfortable warmth of Chopper's arms, as if it was the most natural place for her to be; he tucked the top of her head underneath his chin and they stood in silence together for several long minutes. The young duchess had never in her life felt more protected – and more desired – than she did in those moments. It was a memory of Chopper that would leave a lasting impression, perhaps even more profound than the memory of his kiss._

_Though, as Ylli would discover, she would look forward to those random kisses. They would become the one perk of having Captain Korbin prowl around._

_And she would often wonder what Chopper meant by those kisses, if anything. It wasn't until many months later, that she would think back on this first kiss and wonder if Chopper had really kissed her in order to keep Korbin from suspecting anything more than what he saw..._

_...Or if Chopper had kissed her because he'd found a convenient excuse to do so that she wouldn't question at the time._

* * *

On another curt command, Chopper pulled open his body suit down to his waist. He spread his feet, as if to brace himself for the violent attack of Korbin's club, and put his hands flat on the wall as he'd been told. Ylli's eyes began to water with unshed tears, as she took in the full sight of Chopper's scars.

They were a mixture of colors, depending on their age and the amount of bacta that had or hadn't been available at the time of his injuries. Some were raised and lighter in color than the rest of his skin; she didn't know what those were from, as he would never say and she would never ask. Some were flat lines tearing across his skin in erratic patches of almost reddish discoloration; she recognized those as burn scars, but she didn't know the stories behind them. Others were a combination of both – ugly patches of long-healed burns, layered with the jagged lines of what she assumed to be blaster bolt scars.

Almost all of his upper body was covered in scars; Ylli knew from a past experience, that Chopper's scars continued across his shoulders, his chest, the top part of his stomach, and his upper arms. She knew about them and had even felt their rough pattern underneath her smoother hands, but she had never seen them on such blatant display. Out of respect to the trooper's self-consciousness, she hadn't focused on them before and had done what she could not to bear them any mind. It was hard not to stare now, though; the harsh galley light threw every one of his imperfections into stark relief and the truth of his deformity would have once made her sick to her stomach.

But, in the last months, Ylli had grown slowly past her Hapan prejudices. It had happened so organically, that she didn't even realize it until now, but there it was – Chopper's back was bared to her uncompromising view and she found that she couldn't turn away. She could think only of his kindness and of his honor; she lifted a hand to her mouth as tears finally spilled over the edge of her lashes, and she remembered the taste of his kisses. Her unmarred fingers brushed against her lips and she remembered the feel of his broken body underneath her hands.

Korbin pulled his arm back sharply and the first of many blows to come landed hard against Chopper's back. The thick, smacking sound of duraplast against bare skin echoed across the room and every inhabitant except for the justice-wielding captain flinched in sympathetic response. Punch turned his head away and glared darkly at the floor; Jester kept watching, but his hands clenched tightly at his sides; Gus looked like he couldn't decide whether to grab Korbin's hand or be sick; Ylli could watch in shell-shocked horror and silently cry.

The club land heavily for a second time – it was unsettling to realize that Korbin clearly knew what he was doing and the blows came with calculated timing. Chopper grunted sharply with each blow, but otherwise endured his beating with stoic dignity. As Korbin's club descended a third time in the same place across Chopper's shoulders, the trooper's skin finally broke open.

A red, angry welt bled slowly across the width of his back; Korbin hit Chopper again and the wound deepened with the force of the blow. Blood ran more freely and Ylli watched with wide, tear-filled eyes, as Chopper's misery contrasted with the raised white ridges that already criss-crossed his muscled back.

He had earned enough scars in the course of the Wars, but it seemed that his choices brought only more pain to him. Korbin took a moment to roll his shoulders and eye the first blood of his handiwork; in that second, Ylli remembered a Hapan folk tale she had shared with Chopper.

The story had been interrupted half-way through it's telling – by Bly, of all people. As Ylli stared at Chopper's scarred and bleeding back, she realized that he deserved to hear the ending.

The ending changed how she looked at him – it gave her new eyes with which to see him. It now gave her the strength to make a choice on his behalf.

Chopper was not a Hapan man; he lived by principles of honor and chivalry. Such principles were quaint in the mind of a Hapan matriarch – virtuous ideals to tell a child, but nothing more. He had broken down her defenses with those principles, however; he had changed the way she saw men, saw the galaxy, saw herself within it.

Chopper was not a Hapan man and Ylli realized that because of him, she would never want a Hapan man. He was handsome in a way that no Hapan man could ever hope to be; he was handsome _because_ of his scars.

He was handsome because of his _principles_.

And he did not deserve to have more scars because of his principles, because of his _chivalry_.

As Korbin pulled back his arm for a fourth blow – now aimed for a new spot on Chopper's back – Ylli did the unthinkable.

She moved quickly – too suddenly for even quick-handed Jester to catch her – and threw herself between Korbin's club and Chopper's body. She reached for the scarred trooper and wrapped her arms around his waist, even as she turned her face and pressed her cheek against the wide blade of his right shoulder. His blood was warm and wet against her skin, but she didn't care; the Hapan duchess squeezed her eyes shut and tried not to tremble in fear.

Korbin's arm had far too much momentum to stop in time – if the captain was even inclined to act so honorably for once. The club bit sharply into Ylli's own shoulder and she bit her lip to keep from crying out; pain flared white hot across her senses and she couldn't believe that Chopper had stood beneath Korbin's blows so silently.

A sticky warmth trickled down her arm; it took far less for her soft noble's skin to break. Ylli held onto Chopper – partly for her own need to find some source of continued courage – and tasted blood and tears against her lips.

From this moment on, there was never any going back for her. Even if Korbin didn't hit her again, she was now branded as far more than just a spoiled noble run-away.

She was now scarred, on behalf of a man who wasn't even worth regard in Hapan society. No decent Hapan man would have her – her rights of as the first born heir would never be returned to her, even if she found a way back home and back into her mother's good graces.

The young Hapan duchess was willing to be further broken, if it meant that the man who had protected her against unspeakable cruelty wouldn't have to pay the consequences of his chivalrous actions.

Ylli had seen beneath Chopper's scars – she had seen the man he truly was. And as she clung to his waist and pressed her unmarred curves against his soldier's body, she realized that she had changed – not because of his unselfish chivalry, but because she had grown to love him.

* * *

**A/N: **_The warmest of holiday wishes from Keystone, Colorado! :-)_

_I originally planned "Chivalry" to be a t hree-part series...but this chapter kind of came out of nowhere as I was sitting on a plane from Atlanta to Denver. LOL Chopper wanted an excuse to kiss Ylli...so here you have it. Some nice fluff to warm your holiday evenings. ^^_

_The hubbers and I are at a ski resort for the holidays, so I might actually get a chance to finish the fourth - and final! - installment of this mini-virtue-series. :-) We'll be busy during the day, don't doubt...but after tonight's initial excursion, we've decided that -5 degree weather is NOT what we consider "fun", so we'll be staying in our nice toasty resort room once the sun goes down. That means...quite a few quiet hours to write. ^^ I'm hoping to get some done, at least, before New Year's...because we all know Rabbit's life by now: chaotic and irregular! I've missed the regularity of NaNoWriMo...between school, NaNo, and the holiday rush...I haven't had any inspiration to write until now. T_T So, here's to hoping I'll recharge the old batteries out here in lovely CO, away from the world and my usual schedule. It means more Chopper for all of us...and that's a wonderful thing, indeed. ;-)_

_"Rebellion" is on a mini-hiatus until I finish "Chivalry", "Hope", and _maybe_ "Faith." We'll see. I'd like to finish "Chivalry", at least, and get a much-promised Obi-Wan virtue out, before I pick up again with Cod'ika and the gang._

_Much love, especially, to_ **laloga, **_who read over this chapter and made some suggestions to make it better. ^^ (What would I do without you? Did I mention that I'm hoping to get some READING done, too, while I'm gone? LOL) Thanks and uber hugs to **sachariah**, **laloga**, **jadedsnow****tiger**, **Jess Mar****ylin**, **Kiana**** Tavers-Mereel**, **SerendipityAEY**, and **Moo****ndoe**. You guys ROCK; thank you for all of your continued support, reviews, and love._

_And there's my "blahblah" for the chapter. I hope you enjoyed...I hope it makes sense...and if I don't post before Christmas...HAPPY HOLIDAYS! *hugs and love to all*_

_Love it? Like it? Hate it? Lemme know...!  
_


	8. Chivalry4

******Dedication: **_To **Elorrra87**. I never forgot your request, m'dear. :) Here's your Chopper story, at long last!_

**Recommendation:** _If readers would like to enjoy the source of inspiration for this chapter - and, indeed - for this whole story, check out **"King Henry"** by **Steeleye Span**. It's well worth the listen...I promise!_

**The Knightly Virtues: _Chivalry_**

**In which a Hapan duchess accepts scars on Chopper's behalf.**

* * *

"_Collision is as necessary to produce virtue in men as it is to elicit fire in inanimate matter; and chivalry is the essence of virtue."_

**John Russell**

* * *

"_I _hate_ working parties," Chopper groaned as he lowered himself stiffly on the break room couch._

_There was a small room across the passage-way from the galley, next to the mostly-empty twenty-man berthing that Chopper and his squad inhabited. The room in question was only big enough for a couch, a computer, a small folding table and a few chairs; the troopers used it as an occasional break room, when they had enough time between shifts to socialize. Mingling with one another outside of work was rare; they all worked in the galley around the standard chrono-clock and any spare time they had was usually spent sleeping. But, sometimes, they all had a standard half-hour or so of down-time together after hours; this was one of those rare occurrences when they had an opportunity to sit down and play some sabacc in between shifts._

_Chopper had apparently just come off of a mandatory working party, moving supplies around on the upper decks; exhaustion lined his scarred face and dulled the usual vigilance of his mis-matched eyes. Jester and Punch looked up from their sabacc game in silent sympathy; Gus was on watch and Sketch was asleep in the armchair in the corner. The trooper's mouth was open slightly and he snored softly with his hands folded over his still-armored stomach._

_Ylli sat on the opposite end of the couch with her feet curled up under her. She was bent studiously over a frayed gray tunic; it was part of one of Jester's older dress uniforms, that he had given to her to replace the ridiculously immodest shift that she had been wearing when Appo had first brought her down to Chopper. Ylli was almost as tall as any of the clones, but she was at least half of their width. As a result, there was very little she could do about the size of the tunic, but she was trying to shorten the sleeves. It was proving to be a task far beyond her simple sewing skills and her patience with it was running thin – sewing was _not _a standard life skill taught to a Hapan aristocrat._

_She looked up, eager for a distraction, when Chopper flopped down on the couch next to her. He glanced over at her and eyed her tunic skeptically, as if eager for a distraction himself._

"_Whatcha' got there?" he held out his hand toward her and Ylli gladly took the cue; she handed over the tunic with only a moment's hesitation._

"_I'm trying to pin up the sleeves," she leaned a little closer to Chopper; their shared experiences so far had overcome her inhibitions about sharing personal space._

_More precisely, their shared kisses so far had overcome her inhibitions about sharing personal space with a _man_. Especially a man so disfigured and clearly-not-Hapan as Chopper._

_She thought of those kisses now, as she leaned across the couch to look over his arm as he turned the tunic over in his weathered hands. Chopper had caught her off guard two more times since their first kiss; Ylli was slowly growing to treasure them, as unorthodox as the circumstances were surrounding their existence. The young duchess glanced shyly up at Chopper's scarred face as he puckered his lips in silent evaluation of her stitches; her eyes fixated on his mouth and she stifled the sigh that threatened to betray her inner thoughts._

_Their most recent kiss had started off as an 'evasive maneuver', but had then digressed into a surprisingly sordid affair when the threat of Korbin's appearance had been abruptly redirected before he could reach the galley. That kiss was, in actuality, a series of kisses strung together by mutual initiation; it had ended with Ylli's back pressed up firmly against one of the galley trash compactors, her legs wrapped around Chopper's waist, and her tattered shift pushed up in an entirely inappropriate manner past her knees. They had both been rendered quite breathless by the other, but Ylli had to marvel at Chopper's manners._

_Except for the most recent kiss, when she had allowed his hands to slide a bit farther up her thighs than was probably appropriate, Chopper was the perfect gentleman. Even his gaze was courteous – almost professional, if one could call it that. Except for the occasions when Captain Korbin gave Chopper an excuse to act otherwise, the scarred trooper was the epitome of a well-mannered male._

_In truth, his actions confused Ylli, to some extent. The passion of his kisses left very little doubt in the young Hapan's mind that the trooper did, in fact, desire her. But, outside of those random moments, Chopper did nothing that indicated to Ylli that he had intentions of actively pursuing her. She wasn't sure if that was due to Chopper's own social awkwardness, or due to her own over-active imagination. She had wondered on many a night since their first kiss, if perhaps she read too much into their more active 'maneuvers.' Perhaps he really was just putting on a good show, though the most recent kiss left her wondering..._

_Chopper had no reason to keep on kissing her after Punch had communicated Korbin's sudden retreat to another deck. And she was fairly certain that she hadn't imagined the intensity of his kiss escalating to a whole new level after the captain's threat had moved on. The memory of his rough hands sliding past her knees with knowledgeable intent was testimony enough to the attraction he seemed to feel toward her._

_And yet..._

_He made no other moves. It was enough to drive her to distraction, though what was perhaps most maddening, was her own reaction._

_She _wanted _him to pursue her. And that desire was so completely backwards from her native culture, that it served only to confuse her even more. A large part of her wanted to pursue _him_, but that, too, was against her cultural upbringing. His only title was "trooper", his only wealth was honor, and his only beauty was internal. And even though she had very little desire to ever return to the Consortium, or to her mother's household, Ylli couldn't quite yet justify the pursuit of a man who was nothing in the eyes of her people._

_So, there was only unspoken attraction, expressed sporadically in kisses that only came about in moments that could be justified later with such words as "duty" and "protection." And Ylli's sanity suffered for it, especially in moments like the one before her now, when she wanted nothing more than to kiss Chopper of her own free will._

_And, perhaps, to pull his lower lip between her teeth and claim him for her own._

"_...You've...uh...never sewn before, have you?" Chopper's rough voice pulled Ylli out of her own errant thoughts and she dropped her eyes almost guiltily from his mouth to his hands._

"_No," she shook her head and sighed after a moment's contemplation of the tunic in his lap. "I suppose it shows..?"_

"_You...uh...sewed the sleeve shut," a peculiar look – almost if he was trying not to chuckle – crossed Chopper's face as he lifted the sleeve in question and tried to open it at the point where she had sewed it._

"_Oh," Ylli just puffed out her cheeks in frustration and scowled at the offensive article of clothing._

_She'd only been slaving over it for nearly forty standard minutes. She caught Punch rub a hand over his mouth, as if to wipe a smile off his face. The young duchess sat back on her side of the couch with an audible huff and scowled – it seemed as if her attempts to decently clothe herself had been inadvertently thwarted by her own inexperienced hand._

"_Hang on a minute," Chopper grunted a bit as he shifted stiffly in his seat._

_Ylli watched, puzzled, as the trooper fished for something attached to the far back left of his uniform utility belt. His face wrinkled deeply in a scowl, as it was wont to do when Chopper was concentrating on something. But, the young Duchess had been attuned to subtle body language at a young age - as awareness of non-verbal cues was often the only way to achieve an edge in her mother's deadly court intrigues - and she didn't miss the signs of pain that flickered briefly across Chopper's face._

_"I can show you how to fix it, if you want?" the trooper couldn't supress a low groan as he pulled out a closed vibro-switchblade and settled back against the scruffy couch cushions._

_Ylli considered him silently for a moment, her thoughts spinning as she took in the defeated set of his shoulders. Come to think of it, she hadn't seen him all day - a call had come out over the ship's intercomm system and he had disappeared from the galley right after breakfast._

_"Have you eaten at all today?" she ignored his offer of help for the moment and titled her head curiously to the side._

_"Uh...sorta'," Chopper seemed a little taken back by her abrupt turn of conversation; he eyed her dubiously. "We were given some field rations to eat around lunch time or so."_

_"That was hours ago!" Ylli was properly horrified; dinner itself was a distant memory and she couldn't imagine going almost more than half a day without a proper meal._

_There was, however, one important perk to being galley-crew - 24-hour access to the kitchens._

_"I can go get you something to eat, if you like? A sandwich, maybe? There's some left-over nerf slices from dinner..." Ylli slipped off of the couch and rose gracefully to her bare feet._

_"Naw, don't worry about it," Chopper's ears actually flushed for a moment and Ylli thought her heart would melt at the sight of his sudden shyness. "I'm too tired to be hungry, honestly."_

_"Oh," she nibbled the bottom of her lip as she watched him reach up and rub the back of his neck._

_Chopper often touched the back of his neck or his head when he was embarrassed, but this time his eyes drifted slightly shut as he rubbed a little harder than normal. He turned his head in one direction and then the other, and then rolled his shoulders with a slight hiss. His were the movements of a man who was trying to ease the tension in his muscles - and having very little success at it._

_"You won't eat, but you'd help me fix my own mistake?" Ylli was strangely touched by Chopper's priorities._

_"No offense, Princess, but fixing your mistake doesn't require me to move," the trooper opened his "bad" eye and fixed her with a pale yellow stare that was mildly sardonic. "Ripping stitches require very little movement, I'll have you know."_

_"But it would require you to bend over," an idea was starting to form in Ylli's head and she considered Chopper with renewed interest._

_"I've been bending over all day -" Chopper started to reply, but was distracted when Punch started snickering into his cards. "Get your mind out of the gutter, you pervert," the trooper leaned slightly to the right, so he could look around Ylli's slender frame and fix his brother with a disapproving scowl._

_"You said it," Punch just chortled and Ylli was completely lost._

_She glanced from Punch to Chopper and raised a slight eyebrow in silent confusion. Chopper's ears reddened a second time and he shrugged evasively in response._

_"As I was saying..." he paused and shot Punch another sharp look. "Call it 'hunched'. I've been lifting and shoving duraplast boxes all day. If it helps you out, I can_

_ hunch over a tunic for a few minutes more," he opened his vibroblade with a flick of his wrist and lifted the tunic's sleeve with his other hand. "Won't take me long to tear open those stitches, I promise."_

_"Why don't we set aside sewing for the night?" Ylli eyed the tunic with considerable declination; she was tired of dealing with it and her attention had been captured by another idea all together._

_"You sure?" Chopper glanced down at the tunic sprawled across his armored lap. "I mean...I wouldn't want to offend you or anything, but if you left it to me, I could probably finish sewing both sleeves in about thirty standard minutes."_

_"I think you've done enough for today, Chopper," Ylli said his name softly and he looked up at her with something like amazement. "Perhaps we should all just relax?"_

_"I won't say 'no' to that," the trooper considered her for a moment, before picking up the tunic and neatly folding it. "It's been a long day."_

_He set the offending garment aside and then turned his attention to the scuffed white armor covering his shoulders. Ylli continued to stand and watch him; his movements were slow and somewhat unsteady. Her trained eye could tell that Chopper was at the point of complete and utter exhaustion. She could also tell that his upper body was in a considerable amount of pain; he moved carefully, as if afraid of pulling something or hurting himself further._

_His movements were methodical, his fingers familiar with all of his armor's many buckles and catches. Piece by piece, his upper body armor fell to the couch, where Chopper dutifully stacked the plates in his customary manner. Ylli watched silently all the while and waited patiently for the opportunity to take action._

_His chest plate was the last piece to settle onto the couch; after setting his plates aside on the floor in what was presumably an attempt to make room for Ylli on the cushions, Chopper reached up and began to dig his fingers into a spot behind his right shoulder. His face scrunched up in a grimace and his eyes narrowed shut for a second time as he tried to find some relief from what Ylli assumed was a knotted muscle or stressed tendon._

_There was a time when Ylli would have never thought of a man's comfort. Once, she would have never thought of touching a man with any thought to his own pleasure. Before meeting Chopper, she would have been permanently revolted by a man so disfigured as the one sitting in front of her on the couch._

_But, that was the Ylli of the past. That was before Appo threw her at Chopper's feet; that was before Chopper and his band of brothers had rallied together to keep her safe from further harm._

_That was before the kisses, before the passion she had tasted on Chopper's tongue._

_Ylli said nothing, as she slipped softly around the couch to stand behind Chopper's unarmored back. She gently slipped one hand over his, where he was trying to find relief for whatever ailed his right shoulder. The other hand she placed on his left shoulder, where she gently pressed her fingers into his bodysuit in search of the knots that lay beneath._

_"Ylli...?" Chopper tried to turn around in an instinctual attempt to see what she was doing._

_The young Hapan merely shooed away his hand and stopped him from turning around by firmly gripping both of his shoulders. She shook her head, even though he couldn't see her, and insisted on having her own way._

_"Let me do this for you," she leaned into her hands and pressed her thumbs into a knot below his right shoulder blade._

_Chopper gasped from the pain, but then Ylli felt his body relax almost instantly in response to the sudden release of tension. He groaned, then, and the sound did funny things to her. For a moment, she hesitated, suddenly second-guessing the wisdom of such close contact. But, Chopper then leaned forward and she couldn't deny his plaintive request._

_"Please...don't stop," he moaned, as he leaned his forearms against his thighs. "That feels good."_

_The room was completely silent and Ylli knew that even if they weren't watching directly, every eye in the room was on her and Chopper. She fought the urge to bite her lip and shy away - her hands continued to knead dutifully and she could feel Chopper's body begin to loosen underneath the rough texture of his bodysuit._

_On a whim, Ylli decided to rub the back of his head and around his neck. She knew from her own experiences that stress was often carried there - as she firmly traced the lines of Chopper's neck muscles, she realized that her hunch held true. Most of his neck was stiff and he groaned again in undisguised pleasure as she worked her way up and down the length of his trapezius._

_The top of his bodysuit, however, was proving to be a hindrance. Ylli tried to tug the tight material down toward the top of his shoulders, but the stubborn thing wouldn't stay out of her way. She ended up having to stretch it, but when Chopper shifted under her hands and cleared his throat, she had the sudden suspicion that she was inadvertently choking him, by pulling on the fabric in the back and tightening against his throat in the front. She then tried to massage his neck through the bodysuit - but that proved unsuccessful as well. Her fingers weren't able to dig as deeply as she would have liked and she huffed a bit under her breath in frustration._

_"Would...uh...be easier for me to...ah...open the bodysuit?" Chopper startled her with his suggestion and Ylli realized that she had stopped massaging his neck while trying to puzzle out the best way to proceed._

_His question brought a fine blush to her cheeks - mostly because she had never had a man undress in front of her before, but also partly because she understood what such a request really meant to Chopper. She had seen how the scars on the side of his face reached down below the top of his bodysuit; she knew that he had scars elsewhere, and probably just as gruesome._

_He struck her as a modest man, too - perhaps more modest than she was even herself. Punch had once sat in their break room in nothing more than the bottom half of his bodysuit and his boots, while he mended some of his armor. She'd even seen Sketch and Jester take off their gloves and roll their bodysuit sleeves up. But, she had never seen Chopper uncovered in any capacity whatsoever - he didn't_

_even like to take off his gloves, though he had done so once or twice while working in the galley. She had never seen any bare skin except for his head and hands; she didn't need it spelled out to her, to know that he was self-conscious about his scars._

_The fact that he would even suggest such a thing, now, was... Ylli felt her breath catch in her throat and she couldn't find it in her heart to discourage him. For one, he had to have been in a lot of pain, for him to even think about pulling down the top half of his bodysuit so her massage could be more effective. For another, he had trust her, implicitly, not to recoil in horror or to deny his suggestion._

_The Hapan duchess swallowed hard and nodded her head. It took her a second to realize that Chopper was facing forward and couldn't see her affirmative response, so she took a deep breath and let her fingers drift encouragingly down the curve of his spine._

_"If you'd like," she replied, her voice even more gentle than her hands. "It would be easier that way."_

_Sketch_ _shifted slightly in his chair and Ylli glanced up in time to catch him watching her with sleepy-eyed curiosity. Her attention then flickered toward Jester and Punch, who were both watching her and Chopper with undisguised surprise from over the top of their cards._ _Punch caught her eye and she could see the amazement on his face as Chopper began to move carefully beneath her hands. His shoulders rolled and she pulled her fingers away from him as he began to peel the tight bodysuit away from his neck._

_All of the movement took her attention away from Punch and Ylli watched with a mixture of interest and concern, as the gription 'suit gave away to Chopper's determination. She had never seen suits like theirs before, but Sketch had once explained the mechanics to her. Their suits had been designed by the Kaminoans back before the start of the Clone Wars; the material was made out of a thousand microscopic hooks and latches, so that the suits could be opened at any point along the body. The design, she had been told, was highly functional on the battlefield, where a medic could remove armor and open a 'suit directly at the site of a wound with just a firm grasp and a good tug in opposite directions._

_As a result, though, bodysuits had a textured feel to them that, while not unpleasant, didn't really lend themselves readily to such things as massages. They were almost slippery to the touch and and more than slightly resistant to outside pressure. That made them perfect protection between the skin and armor, but also provided yet another barrier between clones and intimate contact of any kind._

_Chopper's bodysuit, however, was no longer a hindrance to Ylli's intended ministrations. He opened it at the neck and pulled it down with the utilitarian precision of a man who had done it a thousand times before. In fact, Chopper's movements were so direct, that Ylli almost missed the _way _his hands hesitated before pulling the bodysuit off of his arms._ _She suspected as well, that the process of disrobing would have been twice as difficult for Chopper, had he been facing her. As it was, he had her back turned to her and his face suitably hidden. She found herself suddenly wishing that she could see his face, but given the circumstances, she could respect his need for hiding his emotions._

_It was easier, somehow, to be brave when one's face was hidden. Ylli knew that well, since it was not uncommon for Hapan nobility to wear veils or half-masks to hide truth that their faces have otherwise admitted. Masked balls were common, too, in her culture and young girls were taught at the youngest of ages to keep their emotions hidden._

_She was glad, too, that Chopper couldn't see her face. She had overcome her learned aversion to his facial scars, but as her eyes studied the broad expanse of his shoulders, she realized that the scars on his face were the _least _of his injuries._

_She could feel her Hapan prejudices begin to surface, as her eyes skimmed over discolored patches of uneven skin and tracks of raised white scar tissue. And Ylli knew that if Chopper could see her face - if only for a second - then she would deal a blow to him that time would never heal. Her eyes went wide and she resisted the urge to turn away from him in disgust. Chopper pulled down the last of his bodysuit and the full length of his back was bared to her view._

_Ylli closed her eyes, unable to bear the legacy of brutality that had etched itself so permanently into his scarred physique. Never before had she even dreamed that such a broken body could exist; there was no room for such disfigurement within the Hapan society. Yet, even as she squeezed her eyes shut and fought the urge to turn away, Ylli remembered something from her youth - something that skittered across the edges of her memory and tugged gently at the strings of her heart._

_"Too much for you, Princess?" Chopper's raspy voice brought her back to reality and Ylli bit back a gasp._

_Her eyes fluttered open and she forced herself to look at him - if only for a moment. War had etched itself into almost every part of him and she felt tears begin to well at the corners of her eyes. She had seen the truth of the man inside - of his honor, his chivalry, his passion. Without thinking, Ylli reached out her hand again and gently brushed her fingers along the muscled curve of Chopper's shoulder._

_He shuddered slightly underneath her touch and she realized, with a sudden heart-rending pang, that he had probably never been touched skin-to-skin before by a woman. The realization emboldened her and she took a deep breath before stepping closer to him and putting both of her hands firmly on the base of his neck. Determination now replaced her repugnance and even though Ylli couldn't quite bring herself to look at him, she was at least able to continue what she had started._

_"Tell me if I hurt you," was all she said in reply to Chopper's quiet question; he merely nodded and the room plunged into total silence._

_Ylli fixed her eyes on the top of Chopper's bald head, as her fingers began their firm dance up and down his neck. After a few moments, though, she let her hands wander across the top of his shoulders and she could feel the hardened scar tissue underneath her softer hands. She could also tell that Chopper had tensed up again - no doubt anxious about her response to his disfigurement._

_Ylli searched desperately for some way to break the silence and to perhaps distract Chopper from the moment. She knew - instinctively - that he was just as uncomfortable as she was; they were both completely out of their element. She had never before seen - much less touched - a man so horribly scarred and he had probably never allowed himself to be seen - much less touched - by a woman._

_Her fingers rubbed along a roughened patch of skin and she knew that she had found a portion of skin that had once been burned. Ylli bit her lip and tried to focus on something else - on, perhaps, something more than just the surface of his skin. After a few moments, she found what she was looking for - the feel of Chopper's muscles beneath his scars and the firm strength of his body._

_Ylli felt herself relax as she focused on the warmth of Chopper's skin, on the ridges of muscle that pulled his skin taunt, on the raw strength that coiled tightly beneath her hands. As she relaxed, though, so did he and she could feel many of his knots give way to the persistence of her hands._

_And, as she rubbed and soothed his aching back, Ylli finally caught hold of the memory that plagued her. She remembered a time in her childhood, when she was still allowed to keep company with the peasant nurse maid hired to care for her. It had been many, many seasons since since she had thought of those early, almost-idyllic days, when she would play with careless abandon and listen to stories on her nursemaid's knee._

_One of those stories now haunted her, as she felt through the layers of scar tissue and battle-hardened muscle. Ylli turned it over slowly in her mind as she tried to recall the exact details of the tale - it surprised her by how easily the memory came to her. Secretly delighted to have recalled a relevant moment from her childhood, Ylli paused her hands at the small of Chopper's back and leaned forward over the couch to talk gently next to his ear._

_"Would you like to hear a story?"_

_This startled him at first, since he clearly wasn't expecting to have her talk to him. He sat up sharply and nearly hit her in the nose with the back of his head; thankfully, Ylli pulled back herself just in time and avoided a collision. The two considered each other for a moment and the former duchess found her eyes sneaking down to consider Chopper's chest. It was only after a moment or two of silent consideration, that she realized with a start that she had completely bypassed any recognition of his scars in appreciation of his muscular physique._

_She met his eyes almost guiltily and she could feel a slight blush creep along the bridge of her nose. Something like disbelief mingled with pride in Chopper's honey-brown eyes and for a heartbeat or two, neither one of them moved. Finally, though, a small, triumphant-like smile tugged the corners of Chopper's lips and he rolled his shoulders casually in a shrug._

_"Sure, why not. Whatcha' got?"_

_"Well...it's a children's story, really - my nursemaid used to tell it to me when I was still too young to be caught up in my mother's intrigues," Ylli leaned back and carefully resumed her work on Chopper's shoulders._

_Most of the knots in his back and neck were loose, but there were still a few left, concentrated mostly in his right shoulder. Ylli moved both of her hands to the appropriate place and focused the majority of her attention to alleviating Chopper of the last of his pain. The clone beneath her fingers groaned softly in wordless appreciation and the young Duchess thought she had never heard a more sensuous sound. She bit her lip as her thoughts wandered a for moment and as she enjoyed the feel of Chopper's strong body within her kneading grasp._

_"It's a legend, really - more myth, I'm sure, than truth. But, it's about one of the first Queen Mothers of Hapan - Queen Hyn'ri'i, who our history also remembers as 'the Chivalrous'," Ylli glanced up over the top of Chopper's shaved head and saw that every man in the room was watching her intently - except for Sketch, who was still fast asleep in his chair, his mouth gently ajar._

_"In the early days of our history, Hapan was plagued by pirates - descendants of the men who had kidnapped our foremothers and bred with them against their will. The reign of Queen Hyn'ri'i began almost four generations after our foremothers fought and won their freedom, and pushed back the pirate men to the fringes of Consortium Space._

_"This was a time of great upheaval in our history; there were wars not only with the pirates, but within our own worlds. Queen Hyn'ri'i's reign fell during a time of tenuous peace, though it wasn't so at the start of her rule. She came to the throne young and motherless, without a consort to ensure heirs._

_"It is said that Queen Hyn'ri'i was a wise woman, despite her youth. In those early days, beauty was not quite as valued as it is now and she was not at all the most beautiful woman in the Consortium. It said that she was actually rather plain, but that she had a commanding presence that drew many to her as friends and foe alike. Our history remembers her as a just queen, not given to fits of jealousy or rage. She was to become the ideal to which all our queens aspire - and the ideal to which many of our mothers fail. But what, perhaps, distinguishes her best, is the manner in which she chose a consort - a tale which redefined chivalry for our worlds."_

_Ylli paused and considered Chopper's back. As she talked, the clone's knots had slowly loosened, until his body felt completely relaxed beneath her hands. There was really no reason left for her to stand behind Chopper and touch him, but Ylli felt compelled to do so all the same. She softened the strength of her hands and gently brushed her nails against his skin - an action that earned her a soft sigh of contentment._

_She smiled softly to herself and continued the tale with more certainty than before._

_"In those wild days, hunting was not so much a leisurely sport as it was a means of survival. Even the queen hunted, though for Queen Hyn'ri'i's court, it was as much a means of entertainment as it was a means for food. On the Queen's 18th standard birthday, a great hunt was coordinated and much to-do was made about it. All of the queen's finest horses were brought out of their stables, all of her finest hunting dogs let loose, and all of her hunting birds tethered to the hand for the ride into the forests outside of Ta'a Chume'Dan._

_"Queen Hyn'ri'i and her court made a fine gathering that day, but as luck would have it, they chased a herd of buff'o far past the boundaries of the Queen's Forest, into territory that no one had ever explored before. Some of the Queen Mother's advisors urged her to turn back, but night was falling and Queen Hyn'ri'i did not relish the thought of taking her retinue back through the forest in the dark - especially burdened down as they were with game._

_"As the sun was set and the seven moons began to fill the night sky, Queen Hyn'ri'i and her court came upon old ruins. No one knew what these ruins were or to what race of sentients they may have once belonged, but this didn't matter to the Queen Mother at the time. Her party found what appeared to be a feasting hall still in suitable shape and she ordered that they make camp for the evening. Servants who had hunted with them quickly started fires and set up an area within the hall for eating - soon, one would have thought that Queen Hyn'ri'i and her people had always been in those old ruins, eating, and drinking, and making merry._

_"What none of them knew, however, was that the ruins that they had found were home to ancient magic - men's magic, from the time of the Lorell Raiders and those who hunted them down through the Transitory Mists. So, it was with great alarm, that a great wind swept through the deserted hall, knocking down its ancient doors, and filling Queen Hyn'ri'i's court with dread._

_"In Hapes, true night is never known and the Hapan fear the darkness, as we cannot see in it. So, you can imagine the horror that descended upon the Queen Mother and her people, when a great darkness crept through the broken doors and blocked out the light of the moons and the Mists in the night sky up above. Taken over by a primal panic, all but the most stalwart of Queen Hyn'ri'i's beasts stayed with her - the rest fled in a chaotic mob, only to be lost in the wild forests beyond._

_"Queen Hyn'ri'i, however, stood her ground, as a hideous fiend appeared out of the darkness and the wind. He was as tall as the rafters of the old hall and as large around as three women put together. His teeth were like rancor tusks, his breath like a Nal Hutta swamp, and his nose was like a lump of badly shaped clay. For generations, Hapan storytellers have sworn that this monster was bald, with scars all about his face and body -"_

_"Seriously?" Chopper abruptly twisted underneath Ylli's hands, as he craned his neck back to fix her with a disbelieving stare._

_Ylli shook her head vehemently and her eyes widened in her sincerity. She hadn't even realized the connection between the physical deformities of the monster in her childhood story and those that criss-crossed across Chopper's own body. The clone eyed her sternly for a moment, but the young Duchess insisted that the similarity was purely coincidence._

_"Don't be offended, please!" she insisted, secretly terrified that Chopper would take permanent offense to her faux paux. "Let me get to the end of the story - it's not what you think!"_

_"Don't get your skivvies in a bunch, Chops," Jester piped up from the table, ever Ylli's stalwart defender. "Hear the rest of the story."_

_"Humph," Chopper eyed Ylli hard one last time and finally turned around; his shoulders had stiffened underneath her hands, though, and the young Hapan stifled back a sigh._

_She had forgotten such sensitive details, though she wondered the scars hadn't sublimely reminded her after all. There was an awkward pause for a few moments as she tried to recall her place and it wasn't until Chopper rolled his shoulders that she realized that she had stopped scratching his back._

_Despite her offense, he still wanted her to touch him, and that gave Ylli back some of the confidence she had so suddenly lost. Her nails began to drift in undefined patterns across his broken back and she slowly lost herself a third time to the telling of her story._

_"'Some meat, some meat you Queen Hyn'ri'i! Some meat you give to me! Go kill your horse, you Queen Hyn'ri'i and bring him here to me!"_

_"The Queen Mother couldn't explain how this hideous creature could possibly know her name, but she granted his wish without a moment's argument. With grace, and dignity, and a few shed tears, the Queen killed her horse and brought the body back for the creature to devour._

_"And devour, the monster did. But, the Queen's horse was not enough for him - his appetite was as enormous as he was and his demands as ghastly as his visage._

_"'More meat, more meat you Queen Hyn'ri'i! More meat you give to me! Go kill your hounds Queen Hyn'ri'i, and bring them here to me!'_

_"Now, one would think that Queen Hyn'ri'i would deny such a foul request, but it was her grace and wisdom that had made her queen - not her beauty nor her birth right. So, the Queen killed her hounds - those faithful creatures that had stayed with her even when her court had deserted her - and handed them over to the beast to eat._

_"But, even that was not enough!_

_"More meat, more meat you Queen Hyn'ri'i! More meat you give to me! Go fell your birds Queen Hyn'ri'i and bring them here to me!"_

_"And even this request was honored by the Queen Mother. Three times, her uninvited guest demanded food and three times she gave it to him - even at the expense of her finest and most loyal."_

_"Why would she do something like that?" Chopper shifted slowly underneath Ylli's hands and shook his head. "What could she possibly gain from being pushed around?"_

_Ylli almost replied with - "_you could ask that of yourself_," but decided against it. A soft little smile curled up the corners of her mouth, however, and she ran her nails down the length of Chopper's bare neck. She had asked similar questions, as a young girl on her nursemaid's knee - it was a natural assumption to make of a story so seemingly bizarre._

_"There was no one there to witness Queen Hyn'ri'i's actions and no one would have faulted her if she had taken on the beast in a duel. But, you see, the beast had come into a hall where the Queen Mother had set up court, to feast. Even to this day, hospitality is honored among the Hapan - though, it was a virtue held in higher esteem in our wilder days. Not to mention, the Queen Mother rightly assumed that she had intruded on the fiend's own territory. She had violated his hospitality, so she deemed it only right that she make reparations with her own._

_"The fiend demanded drink, after eating up the Queen Mother's hounds, and horse, and hunting birds. He ordered her to sew up her horse's hide, to make a drinking vessel for him and to fill it with her own wine - some of the best in all of the Consortium._

_"This Queen Hyn'ri'i did as well and the beast quenched his thirst. Anyone would think that after being satisfied with meat and drink, that her foul guest would have let her be, but the savage's demands were not yet over. He still had one request left - one more unbearable than any other._

_"He ordered her to make her a bed and this Queen Hyn'ri'i thought nothing of - she even lay her best cloak over the fresh grass and flowers that she had picked to make a sleeping pallet. But then, the beast made his final request - a foul request._

_"'Take off your clothes now Queen Hyn'ri'i and lie down by my side,' the monster ordered._

_"Now, the Queen Mother had endured his demands all night without a word of condemnation or refusal. But, even this request solicited a response from her and she balked at the suggestion being made. For, the fiend was asking Queen Hyn'ri'i to make him her consort._

_"'The gods forbid that ever the likes of you should come and lay down by my side!'"_

_"Hold up!" Punch suddenly lifted his hand and turned toward his nearby helmet with some amount of alarm._

_A series of beeps and whistles could be heard clearly in the quiet room; Gus was signaling from his post and even Ylli sighed in frustration._

_"Bly," Jester rubbed a hand over his face and grumbled into his palm._

_"At least it's not Korbin," Chopper snorted, as he sat up and flexed his shoulders slowly._

_"Well, he better hurry up," Punch leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms mulishly over his chest. "I want to hear the rest of the story."_

* * *

"I'm not going to hit a woman," Korbin surprised everyone with his rough refusal.

Ylli, who was clinging to Chopper for all she was worth, was no less shocked than anyone else. A righteous sort of indignation welled up inside of her, however, and she let go of her friend just long enough to turn around and face Korbin with her chin held high.

"So _now_ you find some moral fiber, Captain Korbin?" Ylli drew herself up to her full height and brought all of her Hapan hauteur to play.

She was a daughter of the Matriarch – she, of all women in the galaxy, knew how to command men. The young duchess' eyes flashed and even "Appo's strill" had the decency to look ashamed.

"You would beat a man _who has done nothing_ and would add yet more scars to his body for no other reason than your cruelty...but you won't 'hit a woman'?" Ylli scornfully tossed her golden head and fixed Korbin with her best glare. "I am a daughter of Hapan and am equal to any man in this room. You have stated your intention – to have blood in exchange for keeping the chivalry of these men a secret from Commander Appo. Carry through with your oath, _Captain, _regardless of who offers to take your punishment."

"Ylli, no," Chopper practically moaned; the young Hapan looked behind her just long enough to catch the look of torment that he threw over his shoulder at her.

Her resolve wavered in the face of Chopper's anguish, but the young woman was resolute. She was not going to allow the man who had protected her from harm to suffer any further – nor was she going to let Korbin back down so easily from his own word.

She purposefully turned around, wrapped her arms around Chopper's waist and pressed the side of her face into the comforting strength of his shoulders. She tried to distract herself from the inevitable with thoughts of that evening several weeks past, when she had captured the attention of a whole room full of men with a simple children's story and her soft, lilting accent. As she hugged Chopper tight and fought the urge to cry, she remembered suddenly that she never got around to finishing the story after Bly's interruption.

The quiet commander had come into the break room and taken in the scene with a raised eyebrow and nothing more. He had requested Ylli's presence on the officer's deck and she had gone obediently to her fate. It was then, that she had discovered the depth of Bly's duplicity – he, too, protected another female prisoner from Appo's grasp and Ylli realized that they were not alone in their defiance.

"I have my blood," something clattered to the floor and Ylli looked down to see Korbin's club laying on the deck by her feet. "Our deal is sealed."

There was long, lingering moment, as everyone present tried to come to terms with what had just happened. Chopper shook underneath the warmth of Ylli's body and she wondered if he was cold, or silently overwhelmed by his emotions. She let go of him slowly – but not before brushing a circumspect kiss against his bloody shoulder.

"You have many secrets, Captain," the young duchess studied the clearly conflicted clone that commanded the attention of every sentient in the room.

Korbin crossed his arms over his armored chest, but the arrogance of his stance couldn't hide the surprise in her eyes. Ylli remembered the look on Bly's face, when he had introduced her to Chiyou – the Pantoran scientist that he hid from Appo's baser instincts.

The look was the same as the one she saw now – one of surprise, uncertainty, indignation, and frustration.

Korbin was no more a 'bad guy' than Bly – of that, Ylli was now quite certain. Even Korbin had honor, buried though it was underneath his anger and aggression.

"Why, Captain?" was she asked, even as her shoulder throbbed, even as Chopper's shoulder bled.

"Every clone on this ship has a crime to pay for," Korbin was as cryptic as ever, his voice almost so low as to be a growl.

It was then, that Ylli suddenly understood.

"This was never about me, was it, Captain?" she pressed gently as she wrapped her arms around her own chest; she was cold. "I was simply a convenient excuse."

Korbin was quiet for a long, agonizing second. When he finally answered, it wasn't so much an answer as it was an accusation. The Captain's eyes flickered briefly toward the others, resting momentarily in turn on Punch, Gus, Jester, and finally, Chopper.

"What these men have done is admirable. But they should have defied their superiors long before now."

"And you would punish them for making the right decisions as they were able?"

"I would punish them for being cowards when the whole galaxy depended on their honor."

* * *

"Why, Ylli?" Chopper's voice was as gentle as his hands, as he pressed a warm cloth against her broken skin.

She was quiet for a moment, as she reflected briefly on all that had happened since the fateful day when Appo had thrown her at Chopper's feet. She thought of her gradual attraction to Chopper and of how naturally she had come to fall in love with him. She thought of Korbin's twisted sense of justice, of Bly's carefully guarded secrets, of the myriad ways in which rebellion seethed under Appo's arrogant command.

Her mind wandered away from Chopper's question for just a moment, as she considered Korbin's character. The men had to explain it to her after he had stalked off, but he had alluded to their involvement in Order 66. Not a single clone present had killed a Jedi – Jester, for example, had even let a Jedi Padawan escape – but they had all been caught up in the choices of their superiors. They had all stayed in the Empire and not a single one of them had thought of deserting, despite the evil that their ranks now sowed throughout the galaxy.

It was that choice – that single choice to _stay_ – that seemingly fed Korbin's thirst for vengeance. No one knew why, though; no one knew the Captain's story. Yet, Ylli knew instinctively that something had happened to Korbin because of Order 66, something that had turned him hard and bitter.

Her woman's intuition wondered if, just maybe, Korbin had lost a lover. She could think of no other reason that would lead to such cold calculation and malicious intent in a man who still seemed honorable underneath it all.

"Ylli?" Chopper's voice brought her back to the present and back to the question at hand.

She was still quiet for a few moments more, as she thought of Queen Hyn'ri'i and the Beast. She had never told Chopper how the story ended – but it was in the story's ending, that the truth of her choices lay.

"Do you remember Queen Hyn'ri'i?" Ylli shifted around in Chopper's narrow bunk, until she was facing him.

He wasn't done cleaning her wound, but she wanted to watch his face. They were alone, since everyone else had insisted that Chopper be the one to patch her up and see her off to bed. She now wondered if maybe her actions had revealed the depth of her feelings to the others – it was well past everyone's bed time, but only she and Chopper disturbed the quiet sanctuary of their shared berthing.

"Well...yeah..." confusion crossed Chopper's scarred face and Ylli wanted to laugh.

Laughter, however, took far more energy than she currently possessed, so she smiled instead. She did, however, reach up and press her hand against the curve of the clone's sturdy jaw.

"She slept with the beast that night and took him for her consort as he had asked," she watched as Chopper's eyes grew big and her own smile widened in response. "The story goes that when the Queen Mother woke up in the morning, the most handsome man in all the worlds lay next to her. His words to her are famous among the Hapan, even to this day -

"'I've met with many a gentle knight that gave me such a fill. But never before with a courteous knight, that gave me all my will.'

"My nursemaid would tell me that story in the hopes that I would perhaps learn to look beneath the surface. We Hapan are horribly shallow and we base so much on the outside appearance," her fingers had grown bold in the time that she had known Chopper and they now traced the jagged lines that tore across his face. "I'm as guilty of that as the next Hapan woman. But...you've taught me to be chivalrous, Chopper. You've taught me to see beneath the surface and to give honor back in kind," she paused and bit her lip, her next words wrought with more emotion than she had ever shared with him before. "You've shown me your passion, your strength of character, your kindness. You made me fall in love with you, Chopper."

The moment hung fragile between them, as fine as Nabooian glass.

"That's _why_."

Chopper stared at her, astounded by the magnitude of her confession. For a horrible moment, Ylli feared that he would scoff at her, or reject her tenuous advances. But, then he reached for her and the moment passed in a kiss that slowly gave way to a passion that neither one of them had ever dared hope for.

And, from that moment on, a Hapan duchess stood bravely by the side of a soldier who could never exist within her people's worlds. She never again slept in another man's bed and in time, she told Queen Hyn'ri'i's tale of chivalry and wisdom to others.

To children, with curly blond hair and honey-brown eyes.

* * *

**A/N:** _And so concludes Chopper's Virtue: Chivalry. _:) _I thought it...would...never...end... O.o LOL_

_Much love and many thanks to everyone who's been reading and reviewing. Thanks to **Rexter11****7**, **Admiral Daala**, **Kiana Tavers-Mereel**, **Librarian Girl**, **laloga**, **Jess Mar****ylin, ****reulte**, and **sachariah** for all of the wonderful encouragement and praise. You guys rock! Special thanks, too, to **laloga** who read this over and assured that it was not, at all, a bunch of bantha poodoo. ^^_

_I'm kind of on a writing-and-uploading spree tonight, so forgive me if my A/N is brief. :) I hope the ending of Chivalry did justice to all of the chapter leading up to it. The ending is much "softer" than I usually allow for in my writing - but it goes to **laloga** who requested a "fairy tale ending". :) Given the nature of the story - which was very much a "Beauty & Beast" sort of tale - I thought perhaps it was appropriate._

_Next up: **Faith**...with a little **Obi-Wan** and **Wolfpack **thrown in just for kicks. ^^_

_Love it? Like it? Hate it? Lemme know...!_


	9. Faith

**SPOILER** **ALERT**: It's not a big one...but you've been warned. (Spoiler applies to events after **A Thousand Suns: Rebellion**.)

**A/N:** For all you Rexsoka fans out there...bear with me. Just give it a try. And no, I haven't killed off Rex. ^^

**Dedication:** _To **SerendipityAEY** - because you're right: we all need a little Obi-Wan in our lives._ _Here's to putting up with all us clone fangirls - this one's for you!_

**The Knightly Virtues: _Faith_**

**In which Obi-Wan Kenobi realizes that faith is usually something that you share.  
**

* * *

"_Faith has to do with things that are not seen and hope with things that are not at hand."_

**Thomas Aquinas**

* * *

Obi-wan sat in his customary spot, with his back to the wall and his face toward the door. Tarvis brought him his tea and lingered for a moment, but try as he could, old "Ben" couldn't focus on the Rodian's usual gossip. The two had a friendly enough acquaintance and the tapcaf owner had grown used to Ben's bi-monthly visits to Anchorhead for supplies, tea, and galactic news.

Today, however, Tarvis' customer seemed lost in his cup of Alderaanian green; Ben apologized and the Rodian insisted that he didn't take offense. Which was the truth – Tarvis had been around a long time, nearly sixty standard years, and there was little that annoyed him anymore. Indeed, the only thing that 'set him off', as it were, was talk about Order 66 and pro-Imperial sentiment.

Tarvis was a loyal one, Obi-Wan thought with a smile, as he watched the trusty alien meander back to his duties at the tapcaf's front counter. Though he would never know that one of his most reputable customers was, in fact, a fugitive Jedi, Obi-Wan suspected that the knowledge wouldn't ruffle Tarvis' headcrest in the least. If there was one sentient on all of Tatooine who could be trusted with the truth of his identity, it probably _was_ Tarvis – but "Ben" had no desire to burden his friend with the truth.

It was much safer to remain anonymous – for him _and_ for Tarvis. The old Rodian had earned the right to die in peace and comfort and Ben was resigned to the silence of his exile. He would be happy with Tarvis' kindness and his excellent collection of teas. Indeed, Tarvis' Tapcaf boasted the best selection of non-alcoholic drinks on this side of the Outer Rim and Obi-Wan was inclined to believe it.

A holoviewer on the opposite side of the tapcaf broadcasted Imperial news for anyone interested enough to watch it. The human news anchor could barely be heard above the low hum of voices and the quiet clatter of dishes; Obi-Wan felt that it was just as well. Every sentient in Anchorhead knew that the holonews had been nothing more than carefully scripted propaganda since the fall of the Republic. And in such a hive of scum and villainy, another source of lies was barely anything of note.

The screen flickered to the one thing of any true interest anymore – the obligatory Wanted Lists. Usually, Ben had considerable interest in the Lists, if only to find hope in the many familiar names that graced the screen. Normally, he would seek out names like Commander Cody, Yoda, Saa Par'jain, Sheltay Marr, Captain Rex, Ahsoka Tano, and Kalinda Halycon. Names that assured him that their owners were still alive and well, still defying the Empire, and still in hiding.

But, today Obi-Wan's attention was distracted by something..._strange_...that stirred beneath the bustling layers of Anchorhead's myriad lifeforms. It was something..._feminine_, he thought. Something..._desperate_, perhaps. Something...strangely _familiar_.

It was the familiarity of the feeling, that prompted him to sit in Tarvis' Tapcaf and gently call out to it through the Force. Something answered back – something undefined, but _aware_. It was almost something like...

But, wait. He wouldn't dare hope for something as miraculous as that. Another Jedi on Tatooine? Unthinkable.

Curiosity kept Obi-Wan in his seat, long past his usual timetable. He even ordered another tea, which seemed to surprise Tarvis. He could tell that the Rodian wanted to ask what he was waiting for, but like any judicious businessman, Tarvis kept his own council and left old Ben alone.

Obi-Wan sipped his tea and waited patiently. That undefinable Something Else sensed him as well and it was steadily drawing closer, though it stopped and lingered in certain places from time to time. As it drew nearer, the Jedi Master felt _another_ inexplicably familiar signature in the Force. The second was stalwart and masculine; it had the sense of a fighter about it. The other was furtive, like a fugitive.

Like him.

A fighter and a fugitive? Curious, indeed. Obi-Wan sipped his tea.

And waited.

* * *

"I don't like this, sir. We shouldn't be this far inside the city," Wolffe grumbled in protest as he stalked beside his statuesque companion.

The young female had grown significantly since the fall of Order 66 and Wolffe actually found himself struggling to match her long-legged stride. This one small thing did, in fact, contribute greatly to his current state of pique. Though, he didn't begrudge his charge's length of stride so much as he worried about losing track of her in the throng of bodies that jostled them at every turn.

"I Sense something," was the only answer he got – which was consistent with every other answer he'd gotten since he'd seen that strange, far-away look come over her eyes on the spaceport pier.

Wolffe huffed in exasperation. Once, he would have tried to hide his displeasure from the Jedi, but the time was long past for such formalities. They were both wanted sentients – she for surviving the slaughter that took out nearly all of her Order, he for contributing directly to her escape. In the two years since they had been on the run, the two had grown close. Perhaps, even, closer than most would have considered wise. Though, to be fair, she had kept a certain distance, until she'd read the Wanted Lists on Nar Shadda and seen that the Captain's name had finally gone missing.

Wolffe had since learned that sharing one's bed with a female permitted certain liberties in daily interactions that once would not have been of much concern. Since that night on Nar Shadda, Wolffe had found that his feelings for the female at his side had grown significantly more...complicated. As a result, he grew a little bolder in voicing his opinion when she dragged him off course with barely any explanation other than "the Force made me do it."

They'd gotten this far, in large part, because of _his_ training, _his_ instincts, and _his_ do-or-die determination. Even she was willing to admit that and_ had_ on multiple occasions. He was protective of her and rightfully so – she wouldn't have been alive at all, if he hadn't followed her fighter that day and pulled her body from the wreckage.

A passing Gamorrean jostled her arm and she missed a step as she stumbled sideways into his burly frame. A slender hand the color of sunset reached out from underneath her too-long robe sleeve and grabbed a hold of his forearm as she steadied herself. Wolffe reached across his body out of sheer reflex and put his hand on top of hers – partly to help anchor her against his body, mostly to hide the tell-tale color of her skin.

"Easy, now," he murmured quietly; she found her footing and her hand slipped out from underneath his to hide again inside of her voluminous disguise. "We shouldn't be here," the clone urged from underneath his rancor trainer's mask.

"We're nearly there," she insisted with gentle conviction; her hood billowed slightly as she nodded her head toward the rounded entrance of a tapcaf across the crowded street.

"I'd love to know how you talk me into these crazy schemes," Wolffe rolled his one good eye and fought the urge to grab her by the waist, sling her over his shoulder, and march back toward the relative safety of the Anchorhead spaceport.

He could imagine her flashing him her usual, mischievous smile, before she darted abruptly from his side and sprinted across the street.

"I'm _really_ getting to old for this," the former commander swore under his breath, before dodging an incoming speeder and following her into the tenuous unknown.

As he had always done, in a lifetime that now seemed so long ago.

* * *

They were a strange pair, though Obi-Wan had seen stranger during his time on Tatooine. He was dressed in the faded drab of a rancor trainer, the bottom of his face hidden behind a tusked mask. His chest was bare, as was common on most rancor handlers, but Ben's well-trained eye didn't miss the scars that covered the deeply tanned skin. He had seen countless scars like those before – he even boasted a few of them himself. They were not the scoring marks of a rancor's claws, but the jagged tracks of blaster bolts that had seered the skin a brighter shade of pink.

She carried herself with poise and grace; her feet were silent on the hard tapcaf floor. Her flowing robe did little to hide her willowy stature, or her hunter's gait. Try as he might, though, Obi-Wan could make nothing of her species out; she was unusually careful about showing her hands and her face was hard to ascertain underneath the shadows of her hood.

The shape of her hood suggested, however, that she was not human. Her hood dipped slightly between two crests, hinting at horns, perhaps, or headtails. Obi-Wan sipped his tea and imagined her to be Togruta – the thought brought back painful memories and he stared into the misty green contents of his mug, lost momentarily in the past.

When he looked up, she was standing in front of his table. Her signature in the Force practically screamed at him and in one awful moment, her vague familiarity coalesced into an awful _knowing_. Ben gasped and nearly dropped his mug; her name nearly slipped past his lips in a shout of surprise, but he bit it back at the very last moment.

A sienna-shaded hand slipped out from underneath her robe and reached for his hand. Obi-Wan set his tea down and offered her his hand willingly, his mind reeling unbelievingly. The moment was muffled in a feeling of great surrealism; not in all his fondest dreams, had Ben ever hoped to see her again in the flesh.

Much less on barbaric Tatooine.

For a moment, his mind rebelled and even as he wrapped his fingers around hers, he wondered if he was mistaken. Perhaps, it was just a trap – a clever Imperial ploy to flesh him out.

But, then her voice broke and the sound of tears filled the space of his secluded tapcaf corner.

"Master...!"

* * *

The years since Order 66 hadn't been kind to General Kenobi, but the premature gray in his beard and the lines of deep-etched worry couldn't alter his familiar face. Wolffe would have been able to have spot him instantly, even in the thick of the crowded Anchorhead street outside. In fact, the former commander had to wonder how the wily Jedi had managed to evade capture for as long as he had – his face was plastered on a million Wanted posters throughout the galaxy and one would be hard-pressed to forget a face like old Ben's.

But, then again, the face on the posters was younger, happier. The Obi-Wan who sat before them, awash in undisguised amazement, had faded a bit at the edges. His hair was bleached from too much time spent in the Tatooine suns; the bold ginger in his beard had paled from too much stress. His face was leaner, his skin darker. Lines fanned out from the edges of his mouth and the corner of his eyes in an intricate web of fine detail; mourning had taken its toll and had marked itself permanently in clear blue eyes that were as kind as ever.

"Please, sit," the general recovered his sense of awareness and waved at the two chairs that sat so conveniently in front of them. "There's no need to hover."

Hovering would draw unwanted attention; Wolffe had already caught the tapcaf's proprietor eying them with undisguised interest. The pulled out the chair closest to him and promptly sat down; his companion followed suit almost immediately.

"What are you doing here?" she whispered, her attention still focused unbelievingly on the general.

"The same as you, I'd imagine," was the bland reply; Obi-Wan's eyes flickered from one to the other, then past them toward the curious establishment at large. "Trying to keep a low profile."

"How long have you been here? We've only just – " the words came out in a tumble, no doubt fed by her excitement at having found such a pivotal figure from her past.

Wolffe made a noise of warning at the back of his throat and the general lifted his hand in subtle admonition.

"This is, perhaps, not the best place for discussion. Tarvis is a trustworthy creature, but the same can not be said of most of Anchorhead. And, around here, even the tables have ears," having made his point, Obi-Wan turned his attention toward the front counter and waved the owner over with a flick of his wrist.

"Perhaps you two would care for some refreshment? The suns will parch you dry without you ever realizing it," his voice was calm and measured as always, but Wolffe caught the hint of a command in his tone.

If they ordered from the house, it would make their presence less conspicuous. Wolffe nodded, his expression grim beneath his mask.

"We'll take your recommendation, sir," he spoke for the first time, his voice a low grumble against the tapcaf's general ambiance.

"A circuit cider and a H'Kok bean tea for my friends, please," the general's order was prompt and the old Rodian's response appropriate.

"Right away," the alien paused a moment before turning away and addressed Obi-Wan briefly for further clarification. "Would you like the tea hot or cold?"

Obi-Wan's eyes flickered across the table and Wolffe knew that the two Jedi were silently communicating in their mystical way. Barely a second or two passed, before the former general turned back to the Rodian and finalized his order.

"Cold, please. It's been an unusually hot day for this time of year."

"Indeed it has," the proprietor nodded sagely. "I'll have those orders right up."

He bustled off and Wolffe watched the mellow tapcaf lighting reflect gently off of the Rodian's dark-blue skin. He was nervous about being out in the open in such a fashion – usually, they stuck to the relative safety of their ship, with only brief excursions out to gather food and other supplies. Wolffe hadn't sat and socialized in any considerable capacity since the war's violent end; it gave the moment a sense of timeless nostalgia and if he wasn't careful, the clone could easily imagine that things were back to being the way they once had been.

Until, of course, he turned and looked at General Kenobi again. Reality could not be denied in the frayed edges of his robe, or the rough cut of his once-impeccable hair.

"I trust you two aren't being followed?" the question was mild, as if he were asking for the color of the midday sky.

"No," she shook her head and the edges of her hood flapped in tandem with her movement. "We had decided to stop here just to refuel and stock up on supplies."

"Well, in that case," Obi-Wan shifted slightly in his seat and took a sip of his cooling tea before speaking again; his voice remained low and conversational. "You two should visit for a bit. I live not too dreadfully far from here, in the Jundland Wastes."

Wolffe frowned and leaned back in his chair. He didn't like the idea of spending any significant amount of time away from the ship, but he didn't need to be a Jedi to know that the young Togruta in his keep was getting a bad case of cabin fever. It also wasn't fair to expect her to pass up the chance to visit with one of her dearest friends and mentors from the Wars.

She had lost General Plo Koon in Order 66 and most recently, she had lost Captain Rex. She had no way of knowing how either of them had died, except that they had. If she wanted to visit with one of the few remaining Jedi in the galaxy...

Well, far be it from him to discourage it. Wolffe glanced over at her and nodded once.

"We would be honored," she bowed her head in graceful acceptance of the offer and even General Kenobi's face lit up slightly in response. "A night or two would certainly not take us out of our way."

* * *

Obi-Wan puttered for a few minutes, unused as he was to having company. He was elated – ecstatic, really – to have have her with him, if only for a day or two. And she brought Wolffe with her – an added bonus.

Ben hadn't really interacted much with Wolffe during the Wars, but he had joined forces with the Wolfpack enough to know that the one-eyed clone was perhaps one of the most dependable commanders in the GAR. Which, honestly, was saying something, since Obi-Wan had never met a clone commander who _wasn't_ dependable – except, of course, at the moment when dependability mattered most. Even stalwart Cody had fallen prey to the influence of the Chancellor's orders – that Wolffe had persisted in spite of his conditioning was an impressive testimony to his loyalties.

Tarvis let Obi-Wan borrow an old speeder and the three had traveled back across the darkening landscape at high speeds. She chose to sit with Wolffe on Tarvis' old speeder and Obi-Wan lead them on his; it only took an hour and one brief encounter with the Tusken Raiders before they made it safely to the Jedi's secluded doorstep.

Obi-Wan watched her surreptitiously out of the corner of his eye, as he set yet more tea to boil and put some beans on to cook. She had formed an attachment with Wolffe – that much was obvious, especially by the way she leaned in toward the former commander's body to whisper to him. Though, when she finally pushed back the hood of her robe and kissed the clone on his weathered cheek, Obi-Wan still felt a modicum of surprise.

He was surprised, however, to discover that it was Wolffe, not Rex, who stood at her side and gruffly accepted her affection. The former general had had plenty of time to consider the past since his exile and he had thought back often on Captain Rex and Padawan Tano. There had been a depth of camaraderie and unspoken endearment that had only grown as the War had ground endlessly on. He had wondered many times, in the last two years, if the two had managed to escape Order 66 together; in the back of his mind, he had naturally assumed that if he ran across them one day, they would be together.

The reality of Wolffe surprised him, but then, after a moment's consideration, it made sense. She had been sent out with the Wolfpack, if he recalled correctly, just days prior to Operation Nightfall. Rex had not been included in that mission, so he would not have been present to save her, as Obi-Wan had assumed. The role of savior and protector had apparently fallen to Wolffe – and by the feel of it, he had won a place in her affections because of it.

Obi-Wan couldn't blame her for her choices. The fugitive pair sat quietly in the living room and old Ben set aside the tea to cool, while he put thick slices of bread on the flat-range stove to toast. Once, he would have condemned a Padawan or fellow Jedi for forming an attachment. But, that was the way of the old Order – if they were to ever rebuild their ranks, sheer practicality demanded that they do away with the archaic laws of attachment. They could not reform within a vacuum, and as Obi-Wan had told Cody once not so long ago, perhaps a little more attachment would have stopped the Emperor's plans from finding fruition.

"Beans and toast?" Obi-Wan offered plates of generous proportions to his guests, who accepted the food with grateful enthusiasm.

The older Jedi settled himself on a gigantic cushion on the floor, crossed his legs, and balanced his own plate on his lap. For several minutes, the silence among them persisted, as they all concentrated on their food. Eventually, though, the questions began, as Obi-Wan knew they would.

"Have you settled down here on Tatooine, then?" she set aside her empty plate and looked around the room, wide-eyed and curious.

"Yes," Obi-Wan nodded slightly. "Seems as good a place as any."

He debated on whether or not to tell her about Luke – the _real_ reason why he stayed on such a Force-forsaken world. After a moment's indecision, he decided to allow the conversation to find it's own way; if there was an opportunity to tell her about Anakin's children, then he would. But, otherwise, he would keep the secret to himself.

"We haven't found a place to settle down," sadness flickered across her young face and Ben knew that she was growing weary of the running. "We've discovered that it's a little hard to blend in as a Togruta."

"Well, I don't help matters any, either," Wolffe piped up; he had taken off his mask and his broad, familiar face was finally open to Obi-Wan's scrutiny.

"Yes, well...you can dye your hair and grow a beard, at least," she nudged him playfully and Obi-Wan got the impression that they had had this discussion before between themselves.

"Might I suggest Anobis, then?" the former general had his back to the wall and he leaned back until he was braced against the sturdy structure of his small home.

He hadn't meant to be so blunt – in fact, he hadn't meant to bring up Anobis at all – but he found that he couldn't bear the sadness in her blue eyes, or the worry that deepened the lines in Wolffe's already craggy face. If he could offer them a safe haven, then it was the least that he could do.

He felt the Force swirl among them and knew that there was more going on beneath the surface of their interactions than even _he_ could fathom.

* * *

"Anobis?" Wolffe frowned as he turned the name over in his head; try as he could, he couldn't place the planet in any of his memories.

"It's right next to Ord Mantell, I believe," Obi-Wan set aside his own empty plate and settled up against the wall. "And you would find old friends there – allies to your cause."

"Who?" she perked up and the hope in her blue eyes was irresistible; Wolffe felt drawn to that hope, as he always had.

"You'd be looking for a Miraluka healer – an Altisian Jedi by the name of Sheltay Marr – a Mandalorian clan chieftain by the name of Saa Par'jain, and a clone commander that I'm sure you both know rather well," a slight smile turned up the corners of Obi-Wan's tired mouth. "You'd be safe with Cody's people."

"_Commander_ Cody?" Wolffe gawked in spite of himself.

"I thought...I mean...I've seen his name on the Wanted Lists, but I have to confess I've been very confused by it," she shook her head and her full-grown lekku shifted alluringly across the curves of her body. "I thought he'd been complicate in Order 66."

"He was. For a time," the general shrugged, as if the news he bore was not particularly significant. "But, circumstances have given the good Commander a distinctive change in heart."

"How can you be so sure?" Wolffe was suspicious – as always.

"I traveled off world about half a year ago, caught a ride in Mos Eisley with what I assumed at the time to be just another shady smuggler's ship. Turns out, I had booked passage with Cody and his adopted father-figure, Saa Par'jain. Cody and I have resolved any issues we might have had over Order 66; you'll find, as I have, that the Commander is a very different man these days."

"How?" Wolffe shook his head, still unconvinced.

"I'm afraid that's _his_ story to tell. But, I can assure you of this," Obi-Wan reached up and stroked his beard; it was a familiar gesture and Wolffe once again struggled with the feeling that he'd stepped into a strange time warp that had taken them all back to the past. "You would find a safe haven with Cody and with the Par'jain clan as a whole."

"If he's fallen in with a Mandalorian, though..." her voice was careful, as if she were afraid of contradicting her elder. "Isn't that...dangerous?"

"Clan Par'jain aided the Republic during the War – their leader, Saa, most especially. He was a double-agent from what I gathered; I can assure you that in these dark times, you could find no better ally than a clan of honorable Mandalorians."

"You have a point there," Wolffe muttered as he leaned back against the squishy couch cushions. "They make loyal friends and dedicated enemies with equal tenacity."

"Unless they're Death Watch," she crossed her arms over her chest and lekku and looked considerably unconvinced. "I have to admit that my interactions with Mandalorians during the Wars left a lot to be desired."

Wolffe had to silently agree. He hadn't dealt directly with Mandalorians in the course of his duties, but he had heard enough to make him suitably wary.

"I can only urge you to give them a chance," Obi-Wan only shrugged and smiled gently. "Saa Par'jain is an honorable man and largely responsible for turning Commander Cody into the man he's now become. They both saved my sorry backside more times than I count, during our months on Bellassa."

"Bellassa?" Wolffe was privately impressed; he arched his eyebrows in surprise. "That's a rough place to be a Jedi, so I hear."

"Indeed it is. Would have gotten the better of me, if I hadn't had help," was the even reply.

Wolffe turned over this revelation in his mind. He wasn't willing to thoughtlessly throw his lot in with Mandalorians, but he was curious to discover what had become of the famous Commander Cody. Wolffe had worked with his fellow clone commander on several occasions and he had always parted company with considerable respect. Cody had distinguished himself above and beyond most any other clone commander that Wolffe could recall; it had always been an honor to serve with him.

"Master Obi-Wan," she suddenly blurted out, as if she had been holding back for the last several minutes. "How can you still have such faith in others?"

And that, Wolffe thought, was the crux of their problem. That was why they still bounced around from planet to planet – not so much because the Empire was in direct pursuit of them, but because Order 66 had stripped them of their faith.

* * *

Obi-Wan was not surprised by her sudden question – it was inevitable, really. Even _he_ had struggled to find faith in the aftermath of Order 66. It wasn't until he had forgiven Cody, that he had finally managed to start the healing process.

And she... She was the apprentice of Darth Vader. She still wore her Padawan's braid – that slender link of beads that marked her as a Jedi-in-training. Ben stroked his beard and eyed her braid; he wasn't sure why she still wore it, but if he had learned anything in the last two years, it was that every surviving Jedi had an obstacle to overcome. The Force had placed certain challenges in their way – hurdles to overcome that otherwise stalled their acceptance of what had become of them.

For him, that hindrance had been Cody. He had been unable to move on past Order 66 as long as he had held onto his bitterness. He hadn't even realized that he was holding onto it, until he came face-to-face with his would-be assassin in the passageway of Saa's ship. Before Cody, Obi-Wan had only a tenuous grasp on hope, embodied in the tiny Luke Skywalker and his twin sister on Alderaan. Faith – in himself, in others, in the Force – had been blocked, until he had been forced to forgive the man who had done him the most immediate wrong.

Obi-Wan eyed her braid and wondered, if that was what holding her back. It was a memory of the past – a stalemate of sorts, as she had no hope of being Knighted by a Council that had all but been exterminated. And, surely, it was a memory, a tie, to a Master she so desperately needed to release.

"Do you know about Anakin?" he asked quietly; a heavy silence permeated the room and Ben could hear the evening bugs chirping lazily just outside his door.

"Yes," her voice broke and her hands clenched with the strength of her emotions.

He thought, maybe, that that was all she'd say, but then she spoke again, her words burdened with sorrow and underlined in anger.

"How could I not? I've felt him so strongly – for two whole years now. I've felt his malevolence, his hatred, his _Darkness_. He's utterly consumed, Master Obi-Wan; I've tried to search for maybe some remnant of the man he once was, but I-" her voice broke again and tears fell softly onto her lekku. "I can't bear the Darkness long enough to find him. He knows I'm alive, too – he reaches out for me, sometimes, through the Force..."

The tears came in earnest this time and Wolffe reached for her. She buried her face in his shoulder, too overcome by her emotions, no doubt, to be self-conscious about such a familiar response. The clone patted her gently on the shoulder and rubbed his hand soothingly over her posterior montral. There was no awkwardness in his touch – the two were close, no doubt, and had been for some time.

Obi-Wan was thankful that she had found someone to whom to share her sorrow. Otherwise...he feared for her. She was strong, to resist such an intimate attachment to the Dark Side. But, it wasn't healthy for her and it was time to urge her to finally let it go.

"Don't you think that it may be time to sever yourself from him?" he asked, gently.

"I-I've tried. I would if I could," she sniffled, her words muffled by Wolffe's darker skin. "B-but..." she reached up and touched her braid and Obi-Wan knew that he had surmised the truth. "I-I'm still a p-padawan. _His_ p-padawan."

"Why don't you remove your braid?"

"B-because, that's n-not my place," she lifted her head from Wolffe's shoulder, her eyes big in shock at the suggestion. "If I remove my b-braid, then it means only one of two things," her eyes were bright with tears that slid slowly down her brightly-hued cheeks. "I-it means I'm a K-Knight, or it m-means I'm no longer," her voice hiccuped and the truth of her fears became apparent in heart-rending sincerity. "A-a Jedi."

Obi-Wan felt his heart go out to her immediately. Hers was a quandary faced by few of the Jedi who had survived. What few he knew had escaped Order 66, most of them were already full-fledged Masters, or at the very least, appointed Jedi Knights. She existed in a weird no-man's land of indecision and uncertainty – by the rules of the Order, it was not, in fact, her place to decide whether or not she was a Jedi Knight. In the absence of a Council – or, at the very least, a Master – to Knight her, she was still "just a padawan."

Her confession bore witness to her undying loyalty to the fallen Order – despite the uncertainty of the situation that had been thrust upon her, she insisted on upholding the rules that had made the Jedi what they were. She refused to take her destiny in her own hands, choosing instead to struggle with her obedience, regardless of the toll it had taken on her.

She would not sever the tie that bound her, until she had done it "properly." Perhaps, in a grander view of things, she was naive for having made that choice, but Obi-Wan was touched by her loyalty.

She still had faith in the Order, in the Force, even if she couldn't recognize it just yet.

"You know that being a padawan doesn't have anything to do with your attachment to Anakin?" he still had to question, though, still had to make sure that she was truly ready.

"I know," she nodded miserably. "But..._not_ being a padawan would help."

He knew what she was saying – being a Knight would give her the confidence she currently lacked. It was one thing to stand up to a Master when one still bore the Padawan's Braid. It was another thing, entirely, to stand up to a Master in one's own authority as a duly Knighted Jedi.

Obi-Wan could only imagine that that sense of confidence was especially vital when one's own Master also happened to be a Sith Lord in _his_ full right. She was small in the face of a larger, hostile galaxy and plagued with uncertainty – and Obi-Wan had learned his own lessons in humility since the fall of the Order.

Once, perhaps, he would have deemed her unworthy for her doubts, her fears, and her lack of confidence. But, he had learned that even fear had its place. She had lost her _sense_ of faith in the face of almost insurmountable odds – but, she had not completely _lost _faith. She still believed in the Order, still believed in the principles that had made it great. She still resisted the Dark Side and Obi-Wan rightly imagined that the lure of the Dark Side was greater for her than for any other.

Her Master was Darth Vader, Lord of the Sith. She would have to live with that for the rest of her life, but he didn't sense anger in her toward him. There was no hostility in her voice when she spoke of him. Just an understandable sadness, a sorrow that weighed down her youthful spirits.

She had faith, and that was all Obi-Wan needed to know. Once, he would have thought that seeking affirmation from others was a crutch, a sign of weakness inconceivable in a Jedi. But, he had learned better – Cody had taught him that.

Obi-Wan had wanted forgiveness, had believed in it – but he wouldn't have been able to give it freely, fully, without running into Cody and seeing first-hand the remorse on his former commander's face. Cody's journey to forgiveness of himself had aided Obi-Wan in finding his own path to forgiveness.

He imagined, that it wouldn't be so different for her and her path back to faith.

She had to begin by believing in herself – and it was not a weakness to need an act of good faith from someone else in order to begin that healing process.

Obi-Wan considered Wolffe, who still held her close and rubbed his hand comfortingly across her back. It was okay, to need someone else, for comfort, for support, for forgiveness, for faith.

Attachment.

It had torn the galaxy apart.

But, it was the only way the galaxy would ever be whole again.

* * *

Wolffe watched, curious and wary, as Obi-Wan silently stood up and fiddled with something tucked underneath the long hem of his plain blue over-tunic. After a moment, he pulled out his lightsaber; for a moment, the Knight stood, considering the cool cylinder of metal in his hand.

"The Council has been disbanded, many of our members killed, to include your own dear friend, Master Plo Koon," the general's words were gentle, but they filled the entire room with a force that was undeniable.

Wolffe felt her hands tighten on his arm and he didn't need to look at her, to know that she was breathless in amazement and wide-eyed in disbelief.

"But, I am still a Master, still a member _of_ the Jedi Council, even if we are no longer together in body. I know the Masters that have gone on before us are present right now, in this room. And it is with their blessing and authority that I honor the traditions that they have fallen for.

"Padawan, those who would be Knighted as a Jedi must face a trial. But, you, I believe, have faced _three_. You have faced the Trial of Courage, for surviving the fall of our Order and continuing to remain true to your training in the face of great adversity. You have faced the Trial of the Flesh, by fighting gallantly through the Clone Wars and retaining your sentience in spite of the brutality that you saw. You have faced the Trial of the Spirit, by seeking for a remnant of your former Master and for resisting his urge to join him."

She had turned completely away from Wolffe and sat in an obvious haze of disbelief. Even Wolffe sat up – a momentous moment was upon them and he felt the urge to stand up at his best parade rest.

She deserved this. If anyone knew that, he felt that it was him. He had watched the iron strength of her character unfold since Order 66. Her faith in flagged, her trust in others had waned, and she was battle-weary, ready for a homeland to call her own. But, she wore her padawan's braid to the bitter end – she believed, even if she hadn't always been sure of what it was she had believed _in_.

She had saved him, too, from darkness, from disbelief, from despair. In truth, they had saved each other. Even Wolffe wasn't sure, always, of why they kept running, or why they didn't just give in. But, then he would see her smile, or hear her sing, or feel her body move in quiet pleasure against his and he would remember.

They kept running because defeat was not an option. They couldn't give in – they _wouldn't_ give in. They would stand against the darkness – sometimes flailing, sometimes floundering, sometimes uncertain in their belief – but they would stand, where others no longer could.

"Commander Wolffe," Obi-Wan surprised the clone by turning toward him, his expression earnest and steadfast.

"Yes, sir?" the commander knew almost instinctively what was coming, as he scrambled almost immediately to his feet.

"Would you stand witness to this Knighting?"

She gasped softly and Wolffe felt his bare chest swell with pride.

"Absolutely, sir," his back stiffened in salute and he felt what he didn't say – that it would be his greatest honor.

"We are all Jedi. The Force speaks through us. Through our actions, the Force proclaims itself and what is real. Today we are here to acknowledge what the Force has proclaimed," Obi-Wan paused and thumbed the side of his lightsaber; a bright blue blade hummed immediately into life.

"Ahsoka Tano, will you come forward?" the general was polite as always, but Wolffe suspected that the words were part of a ceremony as ancient as the Order itself.

Ahsoka slowly rose to her feet and Wolffe caught a glimpse of her expression out of the corner of his eye. Her eyes were bright again with tears and joy warred with disbelief across her expressive, wild features. His heart swelled with pride and for that moment, just that moment, all the misery that they had endured seemed justified in the face of her just due.

She knelt slowly, in a daze, at Obi-Wan's feet, and a smile chased itself across the general's lips before he slowly lowered the length of his buzzing 'saber.

"By the right of the Council, by the will of the Force, I dub thee, Knight of the Republic."

* * *

"That was a bold move, my old apprentice," Qui-Gon's blue-tinted Force ghost tucked his hands slowly into his incorporeal sleeves. "And...might I add, a wise one."

"Thank you," Obi-Wan leaned his shoulder against the rough-hewn exterior of his home and looked up toward the Tatooine night sky.

"Though, I think you shocked young Tano by giving Wolffe your blessing," Qui-Gon's lips curled upward in a smile and even Ben chuckled.

"Getting to know Sheltay Marr will do her some good. I think the Altisians had the right idea all along. I wish I had encouraged her curiosity of them, back when she had encountered them during the War."

"I still say you shocked her."

"Oh, I _know_ I did. It's quite a reversal from the 'Master Obi-Wan' she remembers. But, she'll figure it out. We need each other if we're to rebuild this galaxy, this Order. We no longer have the luxury of existing in a passionless void," Obi-Wan's blue eyes searched the skies above as he imagined Ahsoka and Wolffe riding the runs to the Inner Rim and Anobis.

The two were quiet for a long time, as Ben turned over the events of the last two days in his mind. Ahsoka had been astounded by his impromptu decision to Knight her, but he had never before seen her so happy. She had _glowed_ and it made him smile in turn, at the memory of how he had felt himself after his own Knighting. Though, the memory of his own Knighting brought with it bittersweet emotions, fraught with thoughts of little 'Ani' and the loss of his own Master.

"Do you think she'll be able to resist Darth Vader?" Obi-Wan suddenly voiced the one question that lingered over his decision to Knight Ahsoka.

He had felt that same question in her – that same uncertainty. But, he had sent her off, with loyal Wolffe at her side, with the admonition that she take faith from their meeting, from her Knighting, and use it to battle the weary years ahead of her. He knew he would do well to follow his own advice, but as he had learned, it never hurt to seek confirmation in someone else.

He was but sentient. And even he – the great Obi-Wan Kenobi – needed the occasional light from another with which to illuminate his path.

"Oh, I think she'll be just fine," Qui-Gon's voice was wry and for just a moment, Obi-Wan saw what his Master could see -

Ahsoka, a little bit older, a little bit wiser, a _lot_ more confident, with her own apprentice –

A long-legged, long-toothed, bi-colored, twangy-voiced, goofy-looking, lop-eared..._rabbit_.

Yes, there was much left in the galaxy to believe in. Ahsoka would find faith in the Force once again, as would they all.

Obi-Wan threw back his head and shared his laughter with the stars.

* * *

**A/N:** _Indeed, I spoil you all. ^^ This Virtue practically wrote itself, however...I hope you all enjoyed it. :) I've been wanting to do an Obi-Wan Virtue for some time and this was the result._

_Many warm and wonderful thanks to **Librarian Girl, LongLiveTheClones**, **Elorrra8787**, **Jess Marylin**,** reulte**,** laloga**, and** Admiral Daala**._ So many awesome reviews and so quickly! You all spoil ME! :)

_Next up...I couldn't tell ya'. We might see a little Hope with a certain tall-taled, blaster-slinging space rabbit... But who knows? We'll see where my Muse takes me next._

_Also, as a slight side-note, many of these Virtues feed into stories yet to come. They are ALL a part of my **A Thousand Suns** series. This particular ficlet will probably make more sense once I start my intended Rexsoka-centric story, **We Don't Need To Whisper**, which I will start (along with my Bly-centric story, **Of Faith, Power, and Glory**) after concluding **ATS:Rebellion**. And, just to reiterate...no, I haven't killed Captain Rex. But that's all the hint you're gettin', 'cuz I'll spoil a major plot twist if I say anymore!_

_Just have a little faith...! ^^  
_

Love it? Like it? Hate it? Lemme know...!


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